2010-07-18: Comical

Starring:

Claire_V5icon.pngWheeler_V5icon.png

Date: July 18, 2010

Summary:

Wheeler pops the question.


"Comical"

Wheeler's Apartment

It's been a few days since Claire and Wheeler have seen one another, thanks to work schedules, the riot in front of the police station, and various other circumstances that always seem to be Claire's fate in life. One factor was the fact that swatting out the flames of the protestors that were caught ablaze by the molotov cocktail, Claire's hot-pink cast was burnt and scorched. She contemplated finding a way to get a fake one, but decided it was just too itchy and hot and she'd have to lie to explain its absence after just a couple of weeks.

So it is sans cast that Claire stands on Wheeler's doorstep, a pizza in her newly-bare right arm and a six-pack of Coke in the left. She knocked by kicking the door three times, wincing a little at the pain of a stubbed toe, fading within seconds. She had forgotten what that was like, to feel pain only to have it fade, the knowledge her cells are regenerating and healing the damage.

"One sec!"

The words come from somewhere in the depths of the Wheeler Cave, because he's blasting away at some alien zerg or something on the television screen. Definitely, he's having too much fun playing whatever game this is to just answer the door with the help of a pause button.

Wait. Pause Button. Duh.

Wheeler blasts another alien craft out of the sky and then jams on the pause button. He whirls on his heels and slides over to the front door and yanks it open. "Well! Hello Beautiful!" Wheeler immediately reaches to snatch up the pizza and then flashes a grin at the blonde. "Oh, hey Claire." With his practical joke made, he turns his back on the cheerleader to head back into the apartment.

Playful Burn!

"Ha-ha, very funny. We'll see how well that pizza keeps you warm at night," Claire teases back, following in and shutting the door behind her. "Well, I guess it could give you heartburn, but that's not really the same, is it." She makes her way to the sofa, setting the Cokes down on the coffee table. She kicks off her flip flops and curls on the sofa, content to let him pick up his game where he left off.

"What game is this?" she asks, looking at the screen. She doesn't particularly care but it makes him happy to talk about it.

"Aliens Ate My Dog II: Puppy Chow." Wheeler offers with a bit of a shrug and then slides off towards wherever Claire has chosen to curl up, with game controller in one hand and a stacked slices of pizza in the other hand. Only two! He's not that much of a pig. After a bit of chewing, he's leaning over from his side of the sofa towards Claire. "Thanks, by the way." Puckering right up, he's moving in for the Welcoming Kiss that all Boyfriends should be giving to Girlfriends in the event of not having seen them in a while. It's a relationship thing.

"Oy. Good thing Wizard isn't here to see this!" she says in mock horror, wrinkling her nose. When he moves in for the kiss, she smiles, snuggling up to him and kissing him back. "Sorry I had to flake on the shift the other day, by the way." She was going to be late to work the day of the protest, and she had to go home and wash off scorch marks as well as give Wiz a bath to get the tear gas off of his poor puppy skin.

"I was at that thing at the police station the other day on accident. Happened to be walking by. It was pretty bad," she says in a small voice. She's not about to explain she helped save people, but she can't keep everything from him, either.

"Glad you're okay!" Wheeler sounds like he knows what the hell she's talking about, but it is possibly obvious that he has no clue. He doesn't actually watch the news or anything. He's too busy playing damn video games and stuff of that nature. However, in the midst of taking another bite of Pizza Sandwich, Wheeler realizes that there's something different about his blonde babygirl and he has to get the raising of the eyebrow happening in that next moment. "Um. Claire?" He's not really sure of what to say or ask or how to even go about it, so he just goes for the obvious: "… Where's your cast?"

Cast? What cast? She's tempted to ask, but he's not that oblivious to current events, at least not in regards to hers. She lifts her hand and wiggles the fingers, turning it this way and that. "It was just a hairline fracture. All better! I mean, I'm supposed to be careful with it but the doctor said that the cast wasn't necessary anymore," she lies.

Claire never went back to the doctor, since she'd have to explain why a compound fracture was miraculously better. She'd had Lyle cut the cast off with a saw the day after the protest. "Thank God. It was so itchy. And now I can do this." She brings her right hand up to touch his face, her bare palm against the skin of his jaw. "Better, see!"

Wheeler half-frowns, but then she's touching him and it just fades away. He shouldn't be weak against her charms. So not fair. Good thing he hasn't unpaused the game yet, or he'd totally be getting Puppy Chow'd right now. And that would totally suck. "Do me a favor and be extra careful. I don't like it when you're not okay. It makes me not okay. And when I'm not okay, then it makes my hair do this weird straightening out thing and that takes away from my charming curls." Oh, Wheeler and his weirdly unassuming sense of humor that makes jokes that make absolutely no sense at all. So weird.

"Your hair straightens when you're stressed out? That's weird," she tells him with a grin, leaning forward to kiss him. "Listen, I'm not not careful! I didn't get hurt, after all. As soon as it got bad, I got out of there," she explains. It's sort of true — by "got bad" she means, of course, as soon as people were getting arrested. The getting hurt part was no big deal in her book.

She leans against him. "But it's sweet that you worry." It's been a while since someone really worried about her, at least someone not related to her. And even then, some of her family members haven't been the most concerned about her well being.

"Oh, I worry. I worry a lot. Like, epic levels of worridom. Tremendous." Wheeler decides on milking this worrying for everything it could possibly be worth. "Why do you think you get so many texts from me?!" Yeah, that's right. Bring up the fact that he's way better at keeping in communication than most boyfriends would be, so he can alleviate the possibility of his video game systems being smashed to pieces by irate blondes like those crazy ones on YouTube. Priorities! "Maybe I should start like…. escorting you everywhere. I'm not much of a fighter, but I'm pretty tall. Maybe I can scare some people with my epic height levels?"

Claire giggles, then ducks her head against his shoulder, muffling the laugh that becomes about more than just his silly words. He's trying to be her bodyguard. The laugh grows a touch hysterical for a moment, but that's why she's muffling it. It's a nervous laugh, a laugh borne of the stress that's returned to her with her power. For a couple of weeks, she was normal. She started dating Archie when she was normal.

Now, she's not.

There is worry and guilty and a million questions in her head about whether she should stay with him until she can't, or let him in and let him decide, but none of them seem answerable.

The laughter fades and she stays there, head against his chest, trying to breathe and not think. "Epic height levels," she finally repeats, as if that was what really set her off. "I'm so pwned in that trait."
"Whoa! Look at you! My girl's picking' up the lingo. Nice!" Wheeler is all proud that Claire's dropping gamer terminology like pwned. He's having a very good effect on her, it seems. Granted, he has no idea that being her bodyguard would be the most useless job to ever cross the face of jobs in the history of jobs in the world, but that's what he gets for being normal and dating someone that he doesn't know isn't normal. Right?

"I think maybe I should just start carrying you around in my pocket. Nothing bad ever happens in there."

That proposition is a mix between adorable and wrong, and there are just too many ways to respond, so instead Claire just grins and responds with another kiss, and then another and another. "I'm not going to get hurt, but you can carry me anywhere you want," she says playfully, pushing away all those questions and doubts. After all, she's not normal, but she's still just 20, and most 20-year-olds don't worry about much beyond the moment, right? "You're sweet to worry. I'll be okay," she promises — it's a promise she has a pretty good chance of keeping. More than most people, anyway.

"Anywhere you say?" Wheeler grins a little bit and then proceeds to reach for a small envelope on the table. "I'm so glad you said that because, in this envelope, I've got two plane tickets to one of the most epic, excellent and Double Rainbow events to ever be known to man…"

Dramatic Pause.

Elongated Edition.

"Claire Bennet?" Wheeler slides off the sofa, dropping down onto one knee in front of the girl. He looks up, opening the envelope to fan out the tickets.

"Will you go to Comic-Con with me?"

Comic-Con? Claire blinks at the man on his knees in front of her, glancing then at the tickets and beginning to giggle. "Double Rainbow event. Is that the new adjective for super awesomely cool these days?" Yes, she's seen the YouTube videos. She chews her lower lip. A trip that involves plane tickets? With a boy?

"If you can get my supervisors to give me the days off," she says, mischievous smirk curving her lips upward, "I will go. Just… you know… Don't expect me to dress like Zelda or something. Or Princess Leia in Return of the Jedi. God."

"Seriously? Princess Leia? I would never even dream of trying to get you to dress like Princess Leia! Everybody has their girlfriend dress up like Princess Leia. It's like… overkill." Wheeler is back up and on his feet, ready to do some celebratory dance jig, because he got the girl to say yes. Especially, well, since she is so far away from being a total geek that this could truly turn out to be something incredibly awkward.

"Besides, I already bought you a Supergirl costume."

DUN DUN!

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