[ A camera turns on and starts recording-- was it Claire's? Was it Alex's? Either way, there are some angry shuffling noises from Claire Bennet's closet. In the background is the ferocious, high-pitched yipping of a Pomeranian. The closet door opens a few seconds later to reveal a tall, dark-haired boy in jeans and a t-shirt. He's soaking wet and still steadily dripping when he bursts out of the small room, one of Claire's tank tops attached to his shoulder, and he blinks blearily behind thick glasses. ]

...Mr. Bennet?

West?

Holy shi--



[ooc: summarily updated!]

Is there anywhere here I can go to get a loan for starting up a small business? Or anyone here willing to...give me a loan for starting up a small business?

I was talking with someone the other day and figured, well, nobody owns a swimming gear specific retail surf shop here, so I figured while the weather was warm I would try to start one? I mean I don't sound very serious about this, but I really am serious. I love the beach and I'd love to try this and I am totally devoted. I also have retail experience! And I'm a college junior in business at home?

Also I don't want to deliver tacos for the rest of my life here here here.


PRIVATE to CLAIRE BENNET;

So I found a guy who does bungee jumping! It's kind of expensive but he lets you pick your own location, so I figure that's worth the extra money for the experience, right? Is this going to be a me and you bonding moment or are we inviting the neighborhood regulars?

That curse the other day? Not as fun as it looked. Just because you can die over and over again doesn't mean you should treat life like a video game. I mean, maybe it's funny to some of you, because that kind of thing is just so out there it seems ridiculous, but for some of us it hits really close to home.

It's not fun being hunted down with guns. It's not a game.

And if someone hurts you, even if you get better, that memory is still there. It's like how they say that kids that mistreat animals are more likely to grow up to be abusive. Because when you start rationalizing this stuff you start dehumanizing people.




Is there a guy named Luke somewhere around here? We talked before I think. Can we maybe talk?

I got kicked off my college swim team because they thought I was cheating.

I think I was, maybe. But I don't really know how to reconcile that with everything.


[ooc: cursed v much.]

So I'm just going to come out right now and say it: I liked California way better. I'll take wildfires and earthquakes over crazy bubble dimensions and the countdown to the apocalypse and all this Matrix-y stuff any day. THE BLUE PILL, THE BLUE PILL.

Anyway, first, happy belated birthday to miss Claire Bennet to anyone who isn't aware.

Next, would anybody be interested in forming some competitive community beach volleyball teams now that the weather is getting bearably warm? I'd love to get a few started up. At least six two-person teams? Maybe?

I mean, ideally I'd like to have a bunch more, but lol.


PRIVATE TO ZACH SMITH + HIRO NAKAMURA

You guys are in, right? On bidding for Claire in that fundraiser-thing of Blair's? Because I don't want her to end up spending twenty-four hours chained to some creepy pervo creep like some of the middle-aged guys who used to hang out at Sam's.

So yesterday I was a goldfish. This is what a curse is, right? This sort of stuff?

Nobody told me it had a sense of deep cosmic irony.

And I woke up a few hours ago naked and soaking wet on Zach's bedroom floor. I don't remember how I got there. Probably by being a goldfish, but hey, I had a thirty second memory, so I'm washing my hands of blame.


Sorry about your carpet, Zach.

Claire I wanted--

I feel like we've been avoiding--

I wish you understoo--

It's awkward between us but I really want to--

God. Grow up, Alex.

Hey, Claire. You wanna go get tacos and talk about some things?

[ a dark head appears above the water of the fountain and squints at the surprising, bright sun, jumping with a start as the owner realizes, what the hell, it's really cold suddenly. alex stands up and shakes off, face growing concerned and then quickly more and more panicked. then he slides his glasses out of his pocket and puts them on, dripping, before the shouting starts. ]

Claire?

CLAIRE?

MISSUS BENNET? ANYONE HERE?

Oh god, oh god.

...Lyle doesn't know how to teleport, does he? Because that--

Would have been really good to know like twenty-four hours ago--

CLAAAAAAAAAIRE!

[nick / name]: Lys
[personal LJ name]: bringmepie
[other characters currently played]:
[e-mail]: lysandra.sylier@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: fudgingkillyou @y!m and AIM

[series]: Heroes
[character]: Alexander Woolsly
[character history / background]:



Alex grew up in a small, stable family of two loving parents and a younger sister in Costa Verde, southern California. He was at one point very popular, having various hobbies and a large circle of friends, and he spent most days with those friends on the local beaches, surfing. In high school, he joined the junior varsity and then varsity swim team, and saw great success as a swimmer on those teams. Slowly, in fact, Alex began to realize that he was able to make multiple laps without ever coming up for air.

For some time he continued to be happy, getting a job at Sam's Comics and making money to buy his own car and pay his way through college. Unfortunately, as others became suspicious, he drew away from his friends who had become resentful of his swimming success. After he saved a drowning stranger on the beach, he felt as if he was being watched, and his family began to close off from him, leading Alex to become more solitary and depressed, as he was sure he was being watched even at work through the security cameras.

After Nathan Petrelli and the Hunter began rounding up known people with abilities, the net drew tighter, until Noah Bennet was supposed to bring Alex in. He was rescued by Claire Bennet on command from the mysterious 'Rebel,' after he initially mistook her for a prank from his friends (there to give him a lapdance) and she proved the seriousness of the situation by displaying her own ability. They escape in his Volkswagon and he then explains his past and ability to Claire in short detail. Now on the run from Homeland Security, with Claire as his only benefactor, Alex hides from Noah Bennet in Claire's closet and spends the night on her floor in her sleeping bag.





[character abilities]: He can breathe underwater. Like a fish.
[character personality]:



In the beginning, Alex's life was perfect. He was sociable, energetic, well-liked and well-loved. With a glib sense of humor and a generally optimistic but wry view of life, he was a natural joker and a natural prankster, and although he never wanted to stand out or fit in, he did genuinely want to be liked. Not exactly the local golden boy, he didn't stand out, but he was well-liked and tried to be well-liked, the boy next door, in a beach bum, Southern Californian kind of way. Alex wasn't just happy, though, he was also passionate about whatever he threw himself into, no matter if it was a game of Grand Theft Auto or his plans for his future or his friends or his sports career or doing what he could to help people.

It wasn't a very good personality trait to have, that kind of devoted, single-minded passion, when you discover that you can do something nobody else can do, something unique, something superhuman and special. At first he was careful, he wanted to keep this all to himself. A secret ability. He'd always been kind of a pop culture nerd anyway, especially comics, and here he was, irony of all ironies, sitting in SoCal with a superpower.

So yeah, Alex was careful at first, but his passion got the better of him. He loved to swim. He didn't necessarily need to win or love to win, but he loved to swim. And he pushed his ability out of that love, and eventually, when the first chance arose for him to be a real hero, like a superhero, he took it.

That's when it all went to hell in a handbasket.

Somebody's sold him out, he was sure of it. He couldn't trust any of them, not his friends, not his co-workers, not even his family. Down, down the rabbit hole, and he couldn't even drown himself in his own tears like Alice. There was a man watching him and there were cameras watching him and he felt it every single day for months now, and he was suffocating and he couldn't breathe even the air anymore, because he was different and he was being hunted.

When did he stop feeling special?

When did he start just feeling like a freak?

And just when he felt like he was going to scream, just when the walls started boxing him in for real, she appeared, like a guardian angel, or like, you know, a hot chick in a comic book store, either one being something of Biblical rarity. And just when Alex thought that everything beautiful was ugly, she saved him, and she was his hero. Claire's all that Alex has now; he has no friends, no warm family to return to, no safety net, no college, no car, no job. All that was familiar in his life is gone now.

All he has is Claire and the water.




[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: after Heroes volume 4, 'Building 26.'

[journal post]:



So he's your dad? The man in the glasses? I've seen him at some of my meets. He's been freakin'-- he's your dad?

I don't know what to think about this. About anything anymore. I'm--

[ a tall, dark-haired boy in heavy square glasses is standing in a random apartment, having just appeared there. in his hands is a sleeping bag, which he unfolds with a snap of his wrists and tosses on the floor...before realizing that the carpet wasn't this color a minute ago. ]

Hooooooooooly hell--

I don't--

Not a prank. Not possible. If this is a fucked up emotional nightmare and I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna be epic pissed

...Claire?

[third person / log sample]:


"Oh come on, a hot blonde in a comic book store? Please, Victor sent you right? This is payback for the whole birthday thing, right? Wait, lemme guess, lemme guess, this is all gonna end with you giving me like a lapdance or something."

He knew it wasn't. He knew there would be no lapdance, that this wasn't about a birthday, that there was a reason for this girl to be here staring at him with a pale face and saying these things that she was saying. He knew, because he'd been feeling the buildup for months now, the nerves and the paranoia swimming up and down his spine like a school of minnows. He didn't know, but he knew, because as much as he wanted to laugh it off and make jokes and pretend to be sure this was a confusing if somewhat sexy prank from his co-workers, none of the facts stacked up to such a happy ending.

This was it. This was the endgame. This was the great big 'Alex Woolsly, your life is in danger' that had to be coming. This was the run-save-yourselves.


"This is serious!"

Like a freakin' heart attack and he knew it, and when the girl cut herself on the hand and the blood dripped bright red like cherry kool-aid down her palm and her arm and so close to her shirt he wanted to shout and wipe it off except none of his muscles worked, it all hit him at once. Like drinking too much ice-cold water too fast after you've worked too hard and your body temperature is up.

Bam, like a chunk of ice with the weight of a supernova, down into his belly.

Bam, like he could vomit on the pretty blonde girl who was here to save his life.

Like the truth.

Alex listened to every word she had to say and every word she didn't say and every command she gave him; he helped her help himself, because this was the end of his life as he knew it and he was terrified, but she wasn't, and he had no choice but to trust this girl. Claire Bennet was her name, and it was a nice name. Claire, like...clear. Like clean ocean water and salt air. Like sun on her hair, like underwater light. He was already infatuated, and falling hard, and hell, why shouldn't he be? She was like him. She had a power-- he wasn't alone and he wasn't a messed up, hopeless freak. He had hope, so maybe the old saying that it springs eternal was right after all, because he didn't have any of his old life left but he had Claire Bennet.

Also he could breathe underwater.

But mostly? He had Claire. And that was as beautiful and good as he could hope for.