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

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Now it was Susan who groaned. "He's out of the lake already? Well, that didn't take long. Damn." She tapped her poker against her boot--and oh, she was still mad about that, he had dared break her bloody poker--and sighed. "I can do a few things that...caught his interest," she said. Given what happened last time she'd said anything about her powers, she was a little leery of doing so again. "What he calls 'persuasion', among other things."

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"Persuasion? Cool," Peter grinned, shoving his hands into his pockets and generally looking like the nerdy comics kid who had discovered that maybe comics weren't so impossible after-all. He'd already been through that stage, but it tended to resurface whenever he met new people that had interesting abilities.

Abruptly, this faded as what she had told him sunk in. If she had that, and other abilities, then no doubt Sylar would be after her. "He hasn't hurt you, has he?" Peter asked, not condescendingly but genuinely concerned. And more than a little guilty. "I keep trying to stop him, but I never get there in time."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"Among other things. He's found out about some of them the hard way," Susan said, with a certain grim satisfaction. She quirked an eyebrow at his concern, trying not to smile--he was so very earnest, and she didn't want to knock that down. "No more than I've hurt him," she said, as diplomatically as she could.

Well, it was true. He tried to cut her head open, but she and Shaun knocked him out with a cricket bat and shot him full of paint-balls before they dumped him in the lake. Surely it evened out in the wash. "What did you do, that you thought you'd killed him?" she asked, curious.

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Peter said, not really getting it at first. And then it hit - she'd done just as much to Sylar, so clearly she could hold her own against him. That was a relief, knowing that she could defend herself. Though it wouldn't stop Peter from the overwhelming need to protect everyone from Sylar. "Oh," he repeated, "Huh. That's good. That you can deal his attacks back to him, I mean."

Then, Peter shrugged, his expression darkening slightly in disappointment. "First time, I threw us off a building, but we both survived. Well, I died, but it didn't stick." And that had been back Peter hadn't known that he was going to heal. ...Their second confrontation also hadn't ended well. "Uh, we bashed each other up a bit. I nearly had it, but I got distracted, so Hiro ran him through with a sword. I was so sure he was dead."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Deal with them, yes; enjoy them, no. If this Peter knew of any way to make Sylar go away, she'd be more than happy to learn it.

"Wait, you threw him off a roof--with you--and then someone stabbed him?" Had they been on the grounds, that wouldn't have been much of a surprise, but as it was.... Damn. "And he didn't die." The words were flat, and exasperated--she couldn't have survived anything like that; by rights, nobody should be able to. How was that fair? Susan put a hand over her face.

"All right. Well. That's...disheartening."

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"Well, not actually at the same time, they were different confrontations," Peter said, unable to keep the apologetic tone out of his voice. Sylar hadn't died yet because Peter apparently wasn't good enough to stop him; that didn't sit well with Peter. Especially since he could have finished him off if he hadn't been distracted by suddenly starting to explode.

Absently, he wondered what else Susan could do that could beat back Sylar. Whatever she could do, Peter had likely absorbed it by now, and she might have some useful tricks up her sleeve. "Sorry. If I knew a way to stop him, I would have tried. Well, I guess I have tried, but... short of killing him, I just don't know."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

"And he certainly can't die here," she said, half to herself. "Hmm. Magic might contain him, but I have no idea what sort of a spell that would take...." Susan wasn't normally murderous by nature, but Sylar was pushing it. Damn.

"Are you like him, then, in terms of...powers? What he does isn't magic--may I assume what you do isn't, either?"

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I could just fly really high and drop him," Peter smiled crookedly, though he was certainly serious about the idea. "He wouldn't be able to cut anybody open when all of his bones are broken. When he heals, just rinse and repeat."

It would take a while before he actually got used to pondering ideas like that, though. Much less carrying them through. It was a strange transition, to go from hospice nurse to wanting to kill someone. Murderous intent, though, wasn't unreasonable when it came to Sylar.

And there was an interesting question. "Uh, actually it's more to do with genetics and variations. At least that's what I read. But he can take someones abilities if he does something with their brain." And Peter really didn't want to dwell on exactly what Sylar did with brains. "I just... stand around someone and automatically absorb them." With a sheepish and somewhat apologetic smile, Peter rubbed his neck. "So, whatever he thinks he can get from you, I've got, now."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Her eyebrows went up. "You know, I think I like that idea. You can fly?" Witches could fly on the Discworld, bur much like here they needed a broomstick to do it. Banshees flew without aid, but...well, they were banshees.

The idea of someone standing around her and absorbing her powers...oh dear. "I might have to warn you about a few of them, and maybe teach you how to use them," she said. "Though some you might already have--walking through walls, things like that. The main one that takes some getting used to is THE VOICE." The last two words had strange harmonics, and would not pass through the ears so much as manifest in the brain. "Something I inherited from my grandfather, though it's more...soul genetics than physical, I'm afraid."

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, something I kind of picked up..." Peter half-smiled.

At the comment that he would have picked up walking through walls, Peter's eyes widened in surprise. He might have gotten it from someone else, but until they told him (or he triggered it accidentally), he never really knew. And the voice thing was just... wow.

"No wonder Sylar's after you," he muttered, still surprised that somebody could have that many abilities. It was amazing. "And no wonder you managed to escape," he grinned crookedly. "The voice thing - is that the persuasion you were telling me about?"

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

It must be rather difficult, she thought, to pick up powers without meaning to, or without knowing you were doing so. She'd had a hard enough time, when the bulk of hers first manifested; having to deal with something like that over and over would get...tiring.

"Yes, he seems to think I'm the sort of equivalent of a handy snack," she said, shaking her head. "Though we wound up bickering over whether or not he actually eats the brains. He says not, but I'm not sure I believe him." He was crazy. Crazy people might do anything. "The Voice--it is, more or less, though I wouldn't have thought to call it persuasion before. Stopping Time and tracking people are the main other two--they get to be instinct after a while, but they can be tricky to manage at first."

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

Huffing a quick laugh - though it was certainly nothing to laugh about - Peter shrugged. "That's one thing I've always wanted to know myself... in a really morbid 'I don't think I really want the answer' kind of way," he commented. A good bet probably would be that he ate them, but then again, there were likely other ways he could gain peoples abilities.

"I, ah, actually had stopping time already, from a guy named Hiro," Peter grinned. "That was impossible to use at first, I don't know how the guy figured it out. For me, it just sort of... happened when I really needed it. Pretty lucky, actually."

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Susan's eyebrows went up. "You picked up the ability to stop Time?" Outside of herself and Lobsang, she'd never met a human who could do it--and Logsang didn't really count, seeing as he'd, well, inherited the position of the personification of Time when his mother retired. "Maybe you've already got all mine, then. Do you control what you absorb, or does it just...happen?"

[likeabadpenny.livejournal.com]

It was a weird feeling to actually be apologetic about picking up abilities from other people, but Peter couldn't help it. He was sure he'd run into somebody, someday, that got hugely offended about it.

"It just happens," he admitted ruefully. "I can't control it at all; technically, I just picked them up the moment you came near me. It can get really annoying with unstable abilities." Though, annoying was a huge understatement, really, considering Ted's radioactive power.