He Who Controls the Flame (001 fanfic)

Chapter Fifteen- Inner and Outer Cuts and Bruises

I felt like my entire body was entombed in ice. I had never been so cold before. There was one time, when I was younger, that my father and I had been skating on a frozen lake. I had probably been around seven, back when he, you know...loved me.

I had been having so much fun. We had been out all day, so long that eventually, I had stopped feeling the cold. I was completely numb to it, too focused on my fathers laugh as I skated circles around him. I had never seen him look so happy either, with his cheeks flushed, his eyes twinkling, a permanent smile on his face.

Then...the ice broke. I had only been under for a moment, but I could remember everything that happened. The sound the ice made as it cracked, how it groaned and then shrieked, like the noise glass made when it shattered only ten times worse. Then the way the ground underneath my feet disappeared, and then the feeling of the cold water pressing in around me. My entire body locked up as I went under, my father later told me that that was a natural response to such a drastic change in
temperature.

I didn't like it though, afterwards I had nightmares of being paralyzed, of being trapped underneath the ice forever because I couldn't move.

But then, my father reached in and grabbed me and yanked me out of the water, shaking me to get me out of my daze. He had taken me to a hospital and then, when I was cleared, took me out to get ice cream of all things.

I had never felt cold like that before...until now. And this...this was so much fucking worse.

I peeled my eyes open to see that the world was gently bobbing around me. It was so dark though that I could barely see the trees around us, but I did see one gently sway to the left, parting unnaturally to let us move forward, as if by some unseen force. Peter.

I realized then that I was in his arms, and he had been carrying me for God knows how long. His lemony smell was pressed to my nose considering my face was tucked into his shoulder. Jesus...I had been snuggling him in my sleep.

"L...l...let me down," I stuttered through my chattering teeth.

"No," Peter said simply. I looked up at him, finding it awfully hard to move my head. When had it gotten so heavy?

Peter looked...tense, to say the least. His jaw was clenched so tightly all the muscles in the lower half of his face were standing on edge. His eyes were hooded, his gaze narrowed in on the forest around us. Rain water was running in rivulets down his face, sliding over the harsh planes of his temples and cheekbones. It would've been beautiful had his face not incited such a rage in me.

"Let me down or I will scream," I said, my voice coming out wobbly and weak. An awful representation of the inferno of fury raging inside me.

Peter looked down at me, raising a brow. "You think I won't be able to stop you?" The corner of his mouth curved up just a little. "That's cute."

I scowled at him, his expression only making me shiver harder in his arms.

"You're not well," he said, his eyes scanning my face. "Your lips are blue, your fingernails too. You've been shivering for the better half of an hour."

"And?" I asked.

He clicked his tongue. "So stubborn." He looked down at me. "You're going to die if I don't get you warm. Your powers are lashing out at the cold, they're not accustomed to it. Your body's changed since you've acquired them, your temperature's risen, your whole anatomy is different. You don't function like a normal human being anymore, you can't be soaking wet in thirty degree weather."

"I don't care if I die," I stuttered, "I just don't want to do it in your arms." He stopped moving then, his already rigid body somehow becoming even tenser underneath me.