seventeen
Title: Seventeen
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Peter/Claire (Heroes)
Rating: PG-13 for language. Canon.
Status: Completed one-shot, around 1,000 words
Summary: A year in the life of Claire Bennet, as seen through the eyes of Peter Petrelli. A somewhat-experimental fic in seventeen parts. Don't worry, they're short. For tju_tju_tju_tju.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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i.
On her seventeenth birthday it rained and she said ‘a tree’ when Nathan asked her what she wanted for her birthday so that’s what she got. It was in a blue ceramic pot and she laughed and curled her fingers around the trunk and Peter helped her haul it up to her room.
That was where the rain on the window was warm and he rolled the pot over by her bed, so she could sleep in the shade, he told her.
On her seventeenth birthday, Claire Bennet told him that the only present she wanted from him was a kiss.
A real one.
ii.
A few weeks later her boyfriend picks her up in a shiny blue car that is too low and Peter waves from the window of his brother's house.
Or he doesn't wave, exactly, because that’s not what boys do. He raises his hand, palm up.
She waves back, though. Then she stops, and laughs at something her boyfriend said instead.
iii.
Her lips had been soft and they had tasted like sugar. Like thick, sweet, buttercream frosting that has hot wax dripping over it and candy roses in the corner.
He never eats the stuff again without thinking about it, about that night, and sometimes he smiled when it happened but usually he didn't.
iv.
She buys him tea bowls for Christmas - he doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to do with them, but he thanks her kindly anyway.
She gets a gift certificate in a plain white envelope from him.
v.
A birthday kiss was excusable as long as it was just barely off kilter.
And it was. Swear to God it was. His lips hadn't been quite on hers, hung onto the corner of her mouth instead. It might have lasted too long, but it wasn't a real kiss.
He thinks about it some nights, how easy it would’ve been to turn his lips just a tiny bit and hit it full on.
But he didn't, so it’s excusable and it’s easy to forget so he forgets, she forgets, they forget, but he still hates her boyfriend.
vi.
Party Animal is what her friends call her - too much black eyeshadow (he hates it) and fake eyelashes and her fuck-me boots. Add that to the fake ID and she can get in anywhere.
She’s growing up too fast, like all the kids do in the City, but there's nothing he can do about it except remind himself that she’s a City kid now too.
He wishes she still had her curls, though.
vii.
She starts smoking, and he hates it, hates the way she easily holds the cigarette between her fingers. It’s comfortable and edgy and she’s getting harder and he just adds it to the list of stuff that she started doing that he doesn’t like.
There are lines around her mouth now when she frowns.
iix.
The new boyfriend is fucking twenty-five years old and it kills him that no one seems to care but him.
It’s inappropriate and wrong and what could a twenty-five year old have to say to a seventeen year old, he’d like to know?
No one answers him when he asks this at dinner - his brother laughs like a moron, and when someone changes the subject he just sits there and stirs his soup and mashes the pieces of okra and fennel into the bowl till its mush and then he leaves.
ix.
There’s a line and he tries to walk it but sometimes he can’t see it when she’s around, bits of hair and teeth and brightness float around him and it’s all very confusing but he tries to squint and see past it.
She eats toast in the morning with tons of jam and not much butter and he doesn’t know WHY this is the kind of stuff he thinks about when he’s in the shower or at a movie or driving to the dentist.
x.
Nathan buys her a car with a good crash rating, which is smart, but then she takes it and her new boyfriend to Vermont and they stay all weekend.
It snowed there; he checked the weather reports online. He thinks about them skiing and drinking hot toddies and then fucking by the fire in a snow covered cabin.
xi.
She switches from normal cigarettes to cloves which are dark brown and smelly. He hates them, it reminds him of this guy he went to college with, who liked The Raveonettes and quoted Oscar Wilde.
But she likes them, loves them, and soon the lemmings she hangs out with are all smoking them. When she comes home on Friday nights she reeks of it and no one notices but him.
xii.
They listen to Regina Spektor in the car on the way to the funeral of Matt Parkman.
She leans her face against the window and bawls. When they get out of the car and walk she sniffs loudly and she wears huge sunglasses through the whole burial ceremony. He usually hates those glasses because they hide half her face, but now he gets why she wears them.
His mom tells her to take them off, that no one is interested in her being haughty, not here. Claire doesn’t say anything back before he grabs his mother’s arm and tells her to back the hell off.
He never hears Regina Spektor again without thinking of funerals...and her, but that's nothing new.
xiii.
She cuts her hair again, punky and long on one side, shorter on the other. She teases the front into a straight wisp and she barely looks like the girl he met that day, that one day.
He frowns when he sees it but he realised a long time ago that his opinion doesn't matter to her. Not like before.
xiv.
It's almost her eighteenth birthday and they still call her Party Animal. She asks him if she can host her birthday at his place and he was about to say yes because he wants to be Cool Uncle but his mouth says no instead.
Her eyebrows crinkle and curve and she always pulls her jaw back when she’s pissed and she says why not and then they fight.
He says horrible things, she says the horrible things back, and they never used to fight, but they fight now, and once she threw a glass at the wall by him, hard.
xv.
Nathan brushes him off like all of this is nothing, shakes his head and says that really, she's got to grow up sometime, that he can't keep her a little girl forever.
That's not it though. Clearly that's not it.
xvi.
He finally takes matters into his own hands and tells her one night that he doesn't like what he sees happening in her life. He doesn't like her boyfriend, he doesn't like her friends, and he doesn't like what she's becoming.
He expects anger but he gets a calm response instead. She leans against the wall outside her bedroom and looks at him like he's an idiot when she tells him that that's just too damn bad. That he has no right to say that to her. He's not her father. He's not her friend. And he's not her boyfriend, she says, like he didn't know that already.
xvii.
On her eighteenth birthday its raining again when she asks for her present. He gives it to her and it’s full on this time, no hesitation - he doesn’t even think about it.
He hits her mouth straight on and there's no reticence, no uncertainty like there was a year ago. She still tastes like cake, but its not as sweet this time because it was a spice cake instead of buttercream that they ate a minute ago at her father’s (his brother’s) table.
a/n: this has been kicking around my hard drive for over a month, i havent been able to frame it the way i wanted to. i'm not sure if people will like this - it could probably be easily seen as angsty or depressing but it really isnt (in my mind at least). in either case i'm happy with how it turned out - i could go philosophical on the thinking behind this fic (re: the duality of claire, feminism, and maturation) for pages, but i won't! bottom line, tju_tju_tju_tju has been very supportive and i wanted to wish her a happy birthday on friday. cheers.
Author: missaliceblue
Pairing: Peter/Claire (Heroes)
Rating: PG-13 for language. Canon.
Status: Completed one-shot, around 1,000 words
Summary: A year in the life of Claire Bennet, as seen through the eyes of Peter Petrelli. A somewhat-experimental fic in seventeen parts. Don't worry, they're short. For tju_tju_tju_tju.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
-------------
i.
On her seventeenth birthday it rained and she said ‘a tree’ when Nathan asked her what she wanted for her birthday so that’s what she got. It was in a blue ceramic pot and she laughed and curled her fingers around the trunk and Peter helped her haul it up to her room.
That was where the rain on the window was warm and he rolled the pot over by her bed, so she could sleep in the shade, he told her.
On her seventeenth birthday, Claire Bennet told him that the only present she wanted from him was a kiss.
A real one.
ii.
A few weeks later her boyfriend picks her up in a shiny blue car that is too low and Peter waves from the window of his brother's house.
Or he doesn't wave, exactly, because that’s not what boys do. He raises his hand, palm up.
She waves back, though. Then she stops, and laughs at something her boyfriend said instead.
iii.
Her lips had been soft and they had tasted like sugar. Like thick, sweet, buttercream frosting that has hot wax dripping over it and candy roses in the corner.
He never eats the stuff again without thinking about it, about that night, and sometimes he smiled when it happened but usually he didn't.
iv.
She buys him tea bowls for Christmas - he doesn’t know what the hell he’s supposed to do with them, but he thanks her kindly anyway.
She gets a gift certificate in a plain white envelope from him.
v.
A birthday kiss was excusable as long as it was just barely off kilter.
And it was. Swear to God it was. His lips hadn't been quite on hers, hung onto the corner of her mouth instead. It might have lasted too long, but it wasn't a real kiss.
He thinks about it some nights, how easy it would’ve been to turn his lips just a tiny bit and hit it full on.
But he didn't, so it’s excusable and it’s easy to forget so he forgets, she forgets, they forget, but he still hates her boyfriend.
vi.
Party Animal is what her friends call her - too much black eyeshadow (he hates it) and fake eyelashes and her fuck-me boots. Add that to the fake ID and she can get in anywhere.
She’s growing up too fast, like all the kids do in the City, but there's nothing he can do about it except remind himself that she’s a City kid now too.
He wishes she still had her curls, though.
vii.
She starts smoking, and he hates it, hates the way she easily holds the cigarette between her fingers. It’s comfortable and edgy and she’s getting harder and he just adds it to the list of stuff that she started doing that he doesn’t like.
There are lines around her mouth now when she frowns.
iix.
The new boyfriend is fucking twenty-five years old and it kills him that no one seems to care but him.
It’s inappropriate and wrong and what could a twenty-five year old have to say to a seventeen year old, he’d like to know?
No one answers him when he asks this at dinner - his brother laughs like a moron, and when someone changes the subject he just sits there and stirs his soup and mashes the pieces of okra and fennel into the bowl till its mush and then he leaves.
ix.
There’s a line and he tries to walk it but sometimes he can’t see it when she’s around, bits of hair and teeth and brightness float around him and it’s all very confusing but he tries to squint and see past it.
She eats toast in the morning with tons of jam and not much butter and he doesn’t know WHY this is the kind of stuff he thinks about when he’s in the shower or at a movie or driving to the dentist.
x.
Nathan buys her a car with a good crash rating, which is smart, but then she takes it and her new boyfriend to Vermont and they stay all weekend.
It snowed there; he checked the weather reports online. He thinks about them skiing and drinking hot toddies and then fucking by the fire in a snow covered cabin.
xi.
She switches from normal cigarettes to cloves which are dark brown and smelly. He hates them, it reminds him of this guy he went to college with, who liked The Raveonettes and quoted Oscar Wilde.
But she likes them, loves them, and soon the lemmings she hangs out with are all smoking them. When she comes home on Friday nights she reeks of it and no one notices but him.
xii.
They listen to Regina Spektor in the car on the way to the funeral of Matt Parkman.
She leans her face against the window and bawls. When they get out of the car and walk she sniffs loudly and she wears huge sunglasses through the whole burial ceremony. He usually hates those glasses because they hide half her face, but now he gets why she wears them.
His mom tells her to take them off, that no one is interested in her being haughty, not here. Claire doesn’t say anything back before he grabs his mother’s arm and tells her to back the hell off.
He never hears Regina Spektor again without thinking of funerals...and her, but that's nothing new.
xiii.
She cuts her hair again, punky and long on one side, shorter on the other. She teases the front into a straight wisp and she barely looks like the girl he met that day, that one day.
He frowns when he sees it but he realised a long time ago that his opinion doesn't matter to her. Not like before.
xiv.
It's almost her eighteenth birthday and they still call her Party Animal. She asks him if she can host her birthday at his place and he was about to say yes because he wants to be Cool Uncle but his mouth says no instead.
Her eyebrows crinkle and curve and she always pulls her jaw back when she’s pissed and she says why not and then they fight.
He says horrible things, she says the horrible things back, and they never used to fight, but they fight now, and once she threw a glass at the wall by him, hard.
xv.
Nathan brushes him off like all of this is nothing, shakes his head and says that really, she's got to grow up sometime, that he can't keep her a little girl forever.
That's not it though. Clearly that's not it.
xvi.
He finally takes matters into his own hands and tells her one night that he doesn't like what he sees happening in her life. He doesn't like her boyfriend, he doesn't like her friends, and he doesn't like what she's becoming.
He expects anger but he gets a calm response instead. She leans against the wall outside her bedroom and looks at him like he's an idiot when she tells him that that's just too damn bad. That he has no right to say that to her. He's not her father. He's not her friend. And he's not her boyfriend, she says, like he didn't know that already.
xvii.
On her eighteenth birthday its raining again when she asks for her present. He gives it to her and it’s full on this time, no hesitation - he doesn’t even think about it.
He hits her mouth straight on and there's no reticence, no uncertainty like there was a year ago. She still tastes like cake, but its not as sweet this time because it was a spice cake instead of buttercream that they ate a minute ago at her father’s (his brother’s) table.
a/n: this has been kicking around my hard drive for over a month, i havent been able to frame it the way i wanted to. i'm not sure if people will like this - it could probably be easily seen as angsty or depressing but it really isnt (in my mind at least). in either case i'm happy with how it turned out - i could go philosophical on the thinking behind this fic (re: the duality of claire, feminism, and maturation) for pages, but i won't! bottom line, tju_tju_tju_tju has been very supportive and i wanted to wish her a happy birthday on friday. cheers.