Phoenix
Flame and fire and one man's desires. How Peter gains the power to control fire in 263 words.
(PG): Gen. For prompt #3: Fire at Livejournal's Heroes15 comm.
Follows "Five Years Gone" AU, although it's technically before the episode in terms of timeline.
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He had been trying to outrun the biting cold of winter for years now.
(It had started slowly, at first, encircling his foot.)
Peter stepped out of the car, the sunlight foreign to his eyes. He fumbled in his coat pocket for a small, specific scrap of paper and unfolded several pieces of paper--littering the ground with a frown and small pieces of white parchment that looked something like snow from a distance--before finally unfolding the correct one. A small smile graced his lips as he nodded in silent affirmation to himself. If Claude's information was correct, as it normally was, she would be here.
(Climbing, it was climbing--the sensation indescribable--a mix of mental panic and the cold physical clamp of a snake twining itself, it was--)
This would be the only way to quell the fears, the clammy feeling of turning around and seeing eyes (victims, loved ones, perpetrators) that'd stare at him and go, "You, you, you...!".
And this was all just an excuse to try and desperately cling at a distant impossible salvation.
Two sharp knocks and he rocked back and forth awkwardly, his hand held outstretched, palm up, as if waiting to catch the first snowflake drifting down in the sunny land of Texas.
(He could still see the feral grin and the pointed finger and it was so very, very cold, the snake was swallowing him whole in a tomb of ice...)
A woman, blonde and strikingly familiar, opened the door--the 'dead' having no concern over the government knocking on their door one day.
And Peter's hand, held outstretched even before she opened the door, flickers briefly--a tingling sensation--before bursting into flame.
"Thank you very much."
( Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.)
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A/N: Beta'd by my friend Wusai, all mistakes left over are my own stupidity, of course. Written 5-17-07 when it was still Season One. End line is Robert Frost's work, not mine.