Application: Peter Petrelli (Heroes)

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

(Permission given by the lovely fellow Heroes-muns. Spoiler Warning: Major spoilers for Heroes, including the finale!)

(Second warning under cut for potential series spoiler: If your character is thinking particularly loudly, beware, Peter will hear their thoughts :P)

It turned out that exploding from radioactive power hurt like a bitch. And falling from roughly 6 feet onto a stone floor wasn't terribly pleasant, either.

At least - Peter reflected hazily, blinking as his eyes regrew - he had one thing working for him. Already he could feel what little remained of his skin duplicating from what few healthy cells were left, growing back over exposed muscle and bone. It was an odd feeling; like the tingling sensation felt after all the blood had drained out of a limb. Pins and needles. Nerves reforming with tiny sparks of sensation. Kinda painful, really.

For a while, he just lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, his brain struggling to catch up with what had just happened. It was slow in coming, so instead he just reflected on the spiderweb he could see gathering in one corner of the ceiling.

When the application paper fluttered into existence and appeared on a table next to him, Peter decided he couldn't be bothered moving his neck, let alone his whole body. With a gesture, he floated the paper over and let it hover a few inches away from his face, squinting to read it.

1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?

"Mozzarella," he answered absently. "Food should be fun, and mozzarella is kind of challenging in a fun way seeing how it's so stringy."

Why the hell was he answering questions about cheese? As a break in his skull sealed over, Peter inhaled sharply in surprise. Shit, he'd blown up. His dreams came true, and he really had absorbed Ted's power and been unable to control it. Peter scrambled upwards, accidentally smacking his face into the paper in a particularly dorky move, and threw one hand out to grasp the table for balance.

Nathan. Shouldn't Nathan be here? They'd been together when he'd blown up, he thought, and... oh, shit. Nathan wouldn't survive that. He might have saved the cheerleader, saved the world (or, really, just New York city to be precise), but he'd killed his brother. He'd killed Nathan. All because he couldn't control a little nuclear power.

2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?

After glancing at the next question, it struck Peter as being rather ironic. "I don't want to kill any more people," he answered, the shock of the situation so overwhelming that he still didn't really understand what was going on.

"I just helped kill Sylar, and..." His brother. "I don't really want any more blood on my hands. I don't know if Barney actually has blood," he took a moment to babble, "But even if he did, I wouldn't. Wouldn't, couldn't, and shouldn't."

3. What time is it where you are?

That was a good question, actually. A look at his wrist confirmed that his watch had likely melted off in the explosion. Which meant... oh god. Suddenly panicked, Peter stared down at himself. His clothes definitely didn't survive the explosion. On the fortunate side, 90% of his body was still mostly unrecognizable as even being human - still black and twisted and burnt. He'd been ignoring the pain so far.

"I don't know the time, but... I-I, um, I think I need some clothes," Peter answered, his voice strangled, trying in vain to cover himself and looking horribly embarrassed. He wasn't sure what the small, deformed things that brought them were, but at soon as provided clothes appeared on the table, Peter fled (which meant he mostly stumbled) behind a curtain that the same weird-ass creatures had set up. The still-floating application bobbed along after him.

Eventually he wandered back out, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt far too large for him. With a frown, Peter lifted his shirt and pressed his hands down on a few ribs that had broken the skin, popping them back into place so that they could heal properly. Finally, he was almost back to human.

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.

"Uh." Peter scratched the back of head, not noticing when flakes of burnt skin and dried blood fluttered to the floor. "I don't really... know any of them, so, I dunno. I don't think I'd want to sexually harass someone anyway, that's kind of crazy."

He looked at his hand and grimaced, trying to scrape dried blood out from under his fingernails. Just because he was completely healed now, it didn't mean that he wasn't covered in dirt and blood. He really needed a shower.

...Thank god his hair was okay!

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

"Why would you bartend in the dark?" Peter screwed up his face in confusion, grabbing the application out of the air and holding it in his hand. He glared at it as if it were the source of his problems, which it really was, when he thought about it.

This was really confusing. And not at all what he'd been expecting after blowing up. Well, to be honest, he hadn't really though about what would happen post-explosion, he'd been so bent on trying to prevent it. Peter knew he wasn't dead (...though Nathan might be...), but this was just strange. "I'd name it Simone's," he finished, trying for 'impatient' but mostly ending up with emo 'nostalgic'.

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

"I don't know!" Peter threw his hands up the air in exasperation, his forehead creasing in the beginnings of frustration. "I don't even know where the hell I am, let alone who this Harry guy should marry!

Lowering his arms, Peter exhaled a measured breath, trying to calm himself down. It was hard, with the post-explosion and not knowing if Nathan was alive and hoping that everybody else was alive, but he managed. "Okay, maybe he should just wait a year and see what happens. Relationships change, and so does destiny. He might grow closer to one and not the other, and then he can get married. ...I was never the best mythology student, that's all I've got."

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.

"Oh, man, paperwork sucks," Peter sympathized. Who he was sympathizing with, he didn't know, but the question called for it. "My brother used to deal with it all the time," he paused awkwardly, "Or maybe he still does, I don't know. And back when I was a hospice nurse, there was way too much of it to deal with. I swear it just kept multiplying. So, if you don't want heaps of it, you should probably just quit your job and become a hobo."

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

Abruptly, Peter's expression darkened, and he raked his hands through his hair. That was an interesting question. Could he prove he wasn't useless? Sure, he had the powers he'd picked up from other people. And he'd saved New York. But he'd earned himself exactly one dead brother.

...But maybe Nathan wasn't dead. Maybe Peter was just missing time, and they'd separated at the last moment, far enough away. Maybe. Too many maybes.

"I don't know if I can." Peter frowned at the application paper. "I mean, I can do stuff, and I think I just saved a lot of lives, but... I don't know. I hope I'm not."

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe.

Now that was going to be interesting. Everything Peter had had on his person had been burned to a crisp. He wasn't sure about this bribe business - in a family involved with the government, one tended not to look too kindly upon bribes - but perhaps he should at least offer something. Maybe, if he did, he could prove he wasn't useless.

"I guess I can help with things. Uh, moving big objects... interrogating people..." Peter struggled to find applications for his powers for more menial tasks. "I can probably melt metal now. Or... melt anything. Oh, and I can paint okay." Thanks to Isaac - though it might not be a particularly pleasant subject, depending on what the future held.

But to hell with the future, Peter wanted to know what was happening right now.

I have read the hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. ______PP______
I have read the hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. _____PP______.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. _____PP______.
One day, marmalade will rule the world. ______PP_______

Comments

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"Saints forbid I hoard the school supply of meerkats," said Stephen, amused. In truth he would be delighted should anyone relieve him of this unwanted meerkat bounty. "I cannot claim I know much of meerkat care myself; they resemble mongoose somewhat, so perhaps they may be cared for as one would care for a mongoose, which are kept as domestic pets in parts of India."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Lily had been studying the meerkats with more intensity; well was she familiar with transfigurations gone wrong! "Perhaps," she postured with a hidden grin, "you should attempt to transfigure a whole cake, if the muffins did not produce a mother."

It was an idea that had no basis in magical theory whatsoever. It was simply an amusing thought. One hand reached out to gently stroke the head of the closest animal. As the meerkat snuffled her fingers, Lily's smile grew. "Merlin's bollocks, but they are adorable." Then her eyes flicked up to Stephen, one brow raising slightly in question. "What is a mongoose?"

There was little doubt that Lily would be taking one of the precious little meerkats home to her already extensive and what the hell, animals varied menagerie. Sirius would be thrilled, she was sure. But she had no qualms about taking on the care of strange creatures - not one of her animals would turn down a good teacake. Lily didn't put much effort into making sure her pets had circumstances similar to their home environments, especially as most of them were the results of odd transfigurations.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

One of the meerkats gave Lily an inquisitive look (http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2118311471), raising its head from the tumble of its brethren. Stephen made an indulgent clucking sound at it. This might have been much more endearing in Stephen had it not been the same manner of affection with which he greeted, say, a hive of bees. (He really liked bees.)

"A mongoose," he pronounced, "is a sort of small carnivore native to Asia and Africa. They are known especially for their animosity toward snakes; one keeps them rather as one would keep a housecat, to rid one's household of vermin, if one lives in areas where the mongoose is native, snakes included amongst those undesirables who may make incursions into the domestic sphere."

In fact, the meerkat belonged to the mongoose family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meerkat), a fact of which Stephen was unaware. There were nigh on two centuries' worth of taxonomical refinement he'd missed. It might be taken as proof of his keen eye as a naturalist that he could tell the similarity (http://www.nhc.ed.ac.uk/index.php?page=493.172.296) at a glance.

"I should think these little creatures would like the same sorts of foods, insects and eggs and the like, when they are sufficiently grown," Stephen continued. "For now, though, they will need their mother; they are mammalian, as you will have guessed, and they will wish to consume milk. Perhaps we should find a cake, so as to put your charming hypothesis into action."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Oooh. Face an expression of total delight, Lily reached out and gently stroked the head of the meerkat which seemed to have singled her out. "Hello, Harold," she grinned. All of Stephen's talk about animals went right over her head. Not that she didn't understand, but Lily was far more in the 'aww, cute!' end of things.

A cake she could do. Summoning over a house-elf, she and Stephen were soon in possession of a large cake (http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/images/cake.jpg), the better for meerkat transfiguration research. "What spell did you use?" she asked, absently petting Harold as she looked up at Stephen, intrigued.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen colored faintly. "I had been attempting to create anti-clown projectiles from the muffins," he admitted. "I have not the faintest idea how they might have become meerkats instead. It seemed to me a simple enough form of transfiguration."

[lilypotter60.livejournal.com]

Biting back a laugh, Lily simply nodded, eyes sparkling. "A worthy cause." She squinted at the cake, studying it for a moment, before treating the meerkats to the same scrutiny. Transfiguration was, unfortunately, not at all her area of expertise. She was more than competent, but figuring out how a bran muffin might have become a meerkat was beyond her without some time spent in research.

"Perhaps..." she considered the cake again. "You should just do exactly what you'd done before? Perhaps we'll get the same result."

Or something would explode.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

It might be the sound with which he greeted bees, but Susan still found it rather endearing. "How long would it take them to be...weaned? Assuming you can make a mother-pastry meerkat?"

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

"We shall have to research (http://www.kalahari-meerkats.com/index.php?id=about-meerkats) their care," said Stephen, "which will now be a far easier task since this gentleman has been so kind as to identify the animal for us. Sir, I shall vote you into any house you like, most happily."