fracturedtime (fracturedtime) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-05-17 18:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | annie wheaton, hiro nakamura (future), luke skywalker, nathan petrelli, peter petrelli (future) |
WHO: Hiro Nakamura & Peter Petrelli; Open to Hyperion Residents later
WHAT: Hiro arrives. Peter's got a lot of explaining to do.
WHERE: Random street & The Hyperion Hotel
WHEN: May 17th
RATING: PG-13
STATUS: log; to be continued in comments
Hiro pushed himself away from the computer, raising a hand to press against his temple as he tried to sort this situation out. He was stuck in the past, before the bomb, before he'd discovered his power, before any of it, but in a city where he wouldn't be able to do any good. There were small temporal shocks that were aggravating his senses, but not enough to be unbearable, not as much as there really should be as far as he could judge. This place felt wrong. Not painful like when he was around other temporal manipulators, but it was setting him on edge. Hiro Nakamura on edge was certainly something that nobody wanted. At least there was one familiar face here.
And the second that he saw that face, Hiro was going to plow his fist right into that bastard's jaw.
Nathan was already here. Claire was already here. Peter hadn't thought anyone else would be able to get him out of the Hyperion for a good, solid week or more. Until his name had appeared.
Hiro. His Hiro. The Hiro Nakamura of the future, of the world after the bomb. Who was already blaming all this shit on him? What the hell was that?
At least he'd managed to calm Hiro down a bit. As far as he could tell over a computer. So Peter teleported to the location Hiro had given.
Feeling the familiar tug of his power nearby, Hiro lifted his eyes from the computer screen to glance outside, spotting Peter without much difficulty. God, they must both stick out like sore thumbs in this place, dressed in black, in mourning garments while the rest of the population of the city was living their bright spring lives. Pushing himself to his feet, Hiro stared at Peter for a long moment before turning on his heel and heading out the door.
It was impossible to deny that Hiro was glad to see Peter alive and in one piece. He'd been dazed, confused, and scared on top of the pain that had come from being shot that he'd never get the chance to again. As he'd pushed the comic off on Ando and just before he had lost consciousness (god, he hoped that was all that had happened), Hiro had known in the back of his mind that there was little chance that any of the officers in the DHS were going to let him out of there alive.
But now, it seemed like that wasn't an issue to be worried about. He was safe. Peter was safe. And they had more important things to worry about than Parkman.
"So," Hiro said, sauntering over to Peter. "Care to explain what the fuck is going on here?"
Eyes narrowed. "Don't even think about blaming this one on me, Nakamura. I was the one telling you for how many goddamn years that you couldn't go and change the past. Now, I know I've had trouble in the past controlling all of this. But the last time was three years ago. So don't give me any of this about breaking the space-time continuum. Okay? I am not in the mood."
He closed his eyes for a moment, pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, and let out a breath. After a moment, Peter sighed. "Which version do you want? The DC Comics version, the Star Wars version, the Harry Potter version, the 'The Bomb Didn't Fucking Explode' version, or the Vampires and Demons version?"
Then he flicked his hand up, in a gesture of, 'does it even matter?' "Take your pick, because they're all true."
"Oh, I see. You've gone loopy as well as been messing about," Hiro said, trying not to look amused despite the annoyance that played on his features. Taking another step toward Peter, Hiro shifted his arms behind him as he studied Peter carefully, lifting an eyebrow as he took in every single detail that he could manage, circling him slowly.
"Tell me, Peter," Hiro said, lifting his eyes slowly. "How did you get that scar?"
Peter would understand the question. With the possibility of illusionist, shapeshifters, dopplegangers, and a variety of mimicing abilities, security was a very valuable commodity were they had come from. They had a small list of safety questions between each other, but that was the standard fall back, the simplest one, and the easiest one to pull out in this situation.
Candice had been missing for months, after all. Hiro wouldn't put it beyond her to hold him captive if she did manage to get her hands on him. She was powerful. And it would be far too easy for her to make him think whatever she wanted him to. Even something this crazy.
Peter sighed. He knew the reason for the question. And he knew that this sounded utterly preposterous, but he was getting tired of having to explain all the time, and prove himself reliable.
"Four years ago." He dropped his voice, not that it was completely necessary. "For me it was four years ago. DHS had picked me up, using the Haitian. He stopped my powers from working, and everyone else took an opportunity to get their licks in. The scar was already set, stitched, and healing when you found me." Jaw set, glaring lightly, he looked back at Hiro. "Do I pass the test?"
Grinning despite the glare that was aimmed at him, Hiro reached up, wrapping Peter in an brief embrace, "Bad attitude and all intact, I see. Shame, really. Thought maybe the California air would have done you some good," Hiro said, slipping back as he looked up at Peter. "You do realize we both look ridiculous in these outfits in this heat, right?"
"Only around you, Hiro," Peter said, relaxing. He looked down at his clothes, all in black, color of mourning. Was he still in mourning? Yes, was the answer. Yes, for the five million dead in a New York City that existed in one of these drifting worlds. For his brother. For Claire. For all of them.
But to Hiro, he shrugged. "When have I ever cared about that? Besides, I don't feel the heat." Still, a grin cracked into the serious lines of his face. "It's good to see you, Hiro. Real good."
"Well, that's just delightful for you, isn't it? I'm burning up," Hiro said with a soft smile as he raised a hand to tug at his collar. "Good to see you, too, my friend. I thought for a second there I wasn't going to. Did I imagine Parkman shooting me?" Hiro asked, moving his hand to touch his chest. "It certainly doesn't feel like I've been shot. There's usually blood and pain and a hole to patch up when that is the case."
Peter gripped his arm, squeezing tightly, and anger flashed in his eyes. "He shot you? When? What the hell were you doing with Parkman around?"
No, his mind was crying. Not him too. Not Hiro. Oh god, if that's what the future holds for me, one without Claire, or Nathan, or Hiro, that's a life I don't want to go back to.
The air temperature around them was dropping by degrees.
"You don't remember?" Hiro asked, looking up at Peter in confusion, gripping his arms right back. "You were standing right there, Peter. You slammed the door shut so that he couldn't get to the rest of us."
What kind of sadistic situation was this? He really didn't want to have to explain to Peter everything that had happened. He really didn't want to admit that he was once that stupid and inept no matter how enthralling the news that he'd actually managed to find the right point, to warn the future, would be to say out loud.
And that was when Hiro suddenly realized he wasn't hot anymore.
"No. No, Peter, don't you dare. Hold your temper. We don't need a miniature frost in the middle of the spring heat."
Peter raised his hand, pinching at the bridge of his nose, trying to calm down. But he was furious. Furious. They had lived that future, that world, while in another timeline, things had been changed. Somewhere else, it had worked out.
But in his world, Peter would end up alone.
"No," he said, clenching his teeth. "I don't remember that. When the hell did that happen? The last day I remember is November 3, 2011."
"November 8," Hiro said, looking up at Peter. "I did it, Peter. I found the divergent point, and I figured out where I had to go back to set things on their proper course."
Five days. So if Peter was ever put back into his own timeline, he had five days to figure out how to save Hiro. It was advantage enough.
But when Hiro went on, Peter sagged, the anger slipping away. And then he nodded, as the pieces clicked into place. "You did," he said, nodding. "Save the cheerleader, save the world." He shut his eyes. "And in some other world, it worked. Just not in ours."
"No. No, Peter. That wasn't all. It didn't change back right away, but that was because I didn't know what I had to do," Hiro said, looking at Peter in a deep concern. "I had to come to our time to understand completely," Hiro said, laughing weakly. "That was what I was doing near Parkman. My younger self had to...embarrass me with his inexperience and get himself captured by the DHS. We had to go in and break him out."
While hearing about the exploits of Hiro's younger half would have brought a smile to Peter's face, he was still processing this. "Then why are we here? Why do we still exist? With those memories?" He pointed off in the general direction of the Hyperion. "How is Nathan here?"
"Probably the same reason I've got a headache," Hiro said, smiling slightly. "There's something going on here temporally that's just... It's... It's not right, even if I have no idea what to call it. It's like...there's holes all over the place. But there's no holes. If there where, things would be falling apart," Hiro said, shaking his head slowly. "It doesn't make much sense."
Looking up at Peter curiously, Hiro smiled lightly, "You've been here longer. Should I even try and make it make sense?"
Peter sighed. "It would be nice to have some kind of explanation. No matter how lame. You wouldn't believe half the things I've seen here."
Most illogical of all, that Peter himself was the new Champion for the Powers That Be against the evil of the world. Peter wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea himself.
"You're right. I probably wouldn't. Especially if they are along the lines of what you said initially. Alternate timelines and universes, I'm willing to buy that, but fictional characters is a bit of a stretch, Peter," Hiro said, peering over at Peter before snorting in amusement. "The next thing you're going to be expect me to believe is that Sylar has turned into a overly considerate pushover."
Peter smirked. "Just remember who said it first," was his response. "He still goes by Gabriel here."
Then he beamed. "I got to meet Diana Prince! Wonder Woman! Lasso and all!"
Hiro stared for a long moment a Peter before squeezing his eyes closed, "You're teasing. Please tell me you're teasing," Hiro said before heaving a sigh. The sudden topic change, however, threw him off. Opening his eyes, Hiro blinked at Peter, shaking his head slowly.
"All right, Peter, I'm not going to argue," Hiro said. "Maybe we should find some place a little less out in the open to talk, though?"
Peter's expression darkened. "Hiro. Have I ever joked about Sylar?"
When Hiro suggested they go somewhere more private, Peter nodded and took hold of his arm, teleporting them both to the roof of the Hyperion. He turned towards the camera that was pointed at this spot, waved, and then told the camera to shut off.
"There," he said. "Private."
"No, no, I suppose you haven't," Hiro said with a soft sigh, raising a hand to press against his temple, a ghost of an old memory running through his head. "Gabriel before everything, or did he actually manage to stop?" He asked.
Maybe if I stay here, I can stop.
Not that there was possibly much difference. They both still had the potential to go horribly wrong.
"Where are we?" Hiro asked, glancing up at the camera before looking out over the city below.
"Gabriel before any of this. The only ability I could sense in him was his original one."
Peter let out a breath and looked around at the city. "Los Angeles. Specifically, the Hyperion Hotel. This is where I've been staying. Where, I'm hoping, you would like to stay, too."
At least that had less possibility to go bad. Different environment, not the same triggers at all.
"Quite the view," Hiro said, glancing back over at Peter, offering him a very light smile. After being on his own for a year, having to struggle and learn how to live without any sort of support, Hiro couldn't think of anything better than actually having his best friend near by again. "If you think you can put up with me."
Peter outright snickered. "Depends. Can you put up with two of me?"
Hiro laughed, clapping Peter on the shoulder with a slight smile, "As long as I'm I allowed to hit him if he does something stupid," He said before glancing over at Peter, his smile turning slightly sad. "I got to see Ando again."
Peter smirked. "Hell, I'll hit him if he does something stupid."
His second statement made Peter's eyes widen for an instant, and he put his hand on Hiro's shoulder. He knew it was still painful for Hiro to talk about his old friend. Peter had learned the most about Ando during the nights he and Hiro (or at least Hiro alone) had gotten drunk enough to cancel out inhibitions. Those nights, Hiro would retell stories about his escapade across America with Ando, half in Japanese, a quarter in English, and the last quarter an indecipherable blend of both. That was also how Hiro had learned about Nathan, when Peter had drunk enough alcohol to kill a man twice his size.
Everyone in that world had borne demons they couldn't face in the light.
Peter's hand gripped Hiro's shoulder, gently. "How was it?"
"Wonderful...and painful all the same, knowing that he would have to leave," Hiro said, laughing a bit as he smiled at Peter, ignoring the tears that were rimming his eyes. "Nikki left him slackjawed, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. He never was very good around women."
"And then you had to go and tell him that he was dead while I was unconscious," Hiro said, scowling at Peter. "Thanks for that, really. I had been plaining to keeping it to myself until they left."
Peter shrugged. "Sorry? Maybe. I'm sure I had good reason. He was probably asking why he wasn't around after 5 years. You two were always stuck together. Maybe he neeed to know it to spurn the other you into action."
"Maybe," Hiro said softly before turning his gaze out over the city. LA hadn't even looked like this after the explosion. Everything had went die hill afterwards, even if New York had been the only place touched directly. Hysteria, martial law, strict enforcements of the patriot act and all subsequent acts that came after. People had no more freedom in their time, no freedom to be happy, to enjoy themselves. Even just living was a struggle.
"But we stopped it?" Hiro asked, eyes still cast out over the view. "There's someone here from a place where the explosion didn't happen?"
Peter sighed heavily. This was the part he could no longer avoid telling. He was bound to hear it anyway, from someone in that other timeline. At least this way, it was direct from the source.
"Yes. Somewhere... there's a place where Nathan picked me up and flew off with me before I could explode."
"Good," Hiro said, peering out over the city, a heavy relief flooding into his system. They'd stopped it. They'd stopped...wait. What? Turning to face Peter, Hiro's expression went from relieved to distressed and confused. "What? Peter, what are you talking about? Sylar. Sylar's the one that exploded."
"No," Peter said, shaking his head. "It was me. I was the bomb. Nathan lied. He lied to protect me."
Hiro stared at Peter for a long moment, a heavy frown on his face before speaking softly, "That's why you told me not to hold back," He said. "No matter what I might find. I thought... It doesn't matter what I thought," Hiro said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Peter lowered his gaze. "I couldn't. I couldn't tell anyone. I could barely admit it to myself." He looked to the side, off and over the city. "Five million people, Hiro. I killed five million people."
They'd condemned Sylar for doing it for so long, the act of an insane man with no moral compass, someone who had destroyed the city because of his own uncontrollable blood lust, the worst kind of monster to ever walk the earth. None of those statements fit Peter. None of them. He was as sane as they came. There was no one that Hiro had ever known that had a stronger moral center. And Peter never would have destroyed the city on purpose.
"You couldn't control it," Hiro said softly. "Could you? That's the only way I could think that you would... that you'd let something like that happen."
Peter shook his head. "I tried. I tried so hard. It took everything I had to hold it off. It just wasn't enough. It was too big for me. Just... too damn big."
Crossing over to Peter, Hiro wrapped an arm around his best friend's shoulders. They were so young back then, barely adults and hardly ready to deal with what had been dumped on their shoulders. Hiro knew that he'd made his share of mistakes, growing pains as he was getting the hang of his powers. But not being able to keep yourself from exploding was a world away from making a train late.
"You could have told me," Hiro said quietly.
Peter shook his head. "No. Not at first. It was all too fresh. It hurt. You remember how I was, when you caught up with me a month after. I was barely alive. Not because I didn't know how to live on my own. I didn't know how to live with myself."
He settled a bit at the familiar weight of Hiro's arm against his shoulders. "And then, the more time went by, the longer it took... it just got harder and harder to tell you the truth."
Hiro nodded slowly, trying not to think too much of how it had been when he'd first pulled Peter out of the DHS holding facility. He'd been in horrible shape. Hiro had been afraid for awhile that he wasn't going to make it, that he'd slowly degrade until nothing was left but a hallow shell. He'd counted it as sheer luck when Peter had started to come back into himself.
"We stopped it, Peter," Hiro said, squeezing his shoulder. That was enough for Hiro, even if he still had all of the memories, all of the reality of the horrors in his mind. "There's a world out there where they survived, where everyone did. Where we're not wanted criminals. And where Sylar's dead."
God, he hoped that last statement was true. He'd told Hiro and Ando everything that they needed to know to get it done.
"We did it."
Peter managed a smirk in the corner of his lips. "Yeah." Then he glanced back at Hiro. "You did it. That was all you, Hiro. Even without knowing the truth, you did it." He smiled a bit. "I'm proud of you."
"I never would have been able to do it without you, Peter," Hiro said, smiling right back as he reached up, ruffling Peter's hair as best he could manage. "I have missed you, my friend. We didn't get nearly enough time to talk what with the fact that Parkman kept getting the drop on me."
Peter stared at Hiro for a moment. "Parkman. Again." Then he sighed. "You must have been letting Ando distract you. Parkman never could have caught Hiro Nakamura."
Hiro wanted to protest, say that Ando wasn't a distraction, but the more that he thought about it, the more he had to admit that each time Parkman had gotten to him, his attention had either been focused on Ando or on his younger self. Maybe Peter had a point. But it wasn't as though it mattered, not now, not here.
"Parkman didn't catch me," Hiro said, smiling over at Peter. "Of course, that's mostly because I had you to pull my ass to safety whenever he tried."
Peter looked at his friend for a moment, weighing if that was true, but then smiled when Hiro's eyes confirmed it. "Damn right," he said. "Like I'd let anything happen to you."
Hiro beamed at Peter, giving him a half hug again before glancing down at the building, "So. Going to introduce me to the lot of strangers that I'm going to have to get used to?"
Peter shook his head. "Nope. You get to meet them all on your own. Just don't freak out when you see a version of me that doesn't have a scar."
"Won't be the first time I've seen you like that," Hiro said, grinning over at Peter. "Exactly how much getting used to is this going to take?"