ataraxionlogs | there ain't no rest for the wicked

Entry tags:

there ain't no rest for the wicked

CHARACTERS: Captain Jack Harkness & Peter Petrelli
LOCATION: 1st floor lounge
WARNINGS: None? i'll change if necessary (considering it is jack) but there shouldn't be any.
SUMMARY: TALKING ABOUT STUFF

[ Peter wanted to do this as much as he didn't want to. Which was, y'know, exactly why he was walking fast, pushing the button on the lift more than a few times in a row and hoping that might help it get there faster. Maybe he really did just want to talk and fuck everything else - he wouldn't have contacted Jack if he didn't. He just wasn't really sure who else to go to; he didn't know who he needed to have this conversation with and considering he'd kept near everyone out of the real thoughts he was having, there had to be someone who got the whole truth.

And Jack had become that one person. Otherwise Peter was going to lose it in ways he couldn't explain to anyone else.

Making his way down to the first floor, Peter leaned up against the wall of the lift, arms folded over his chest. Mind going over all the things he wanted to say, Peter didn't know where to start anymore even if all he could think about was Sylar. He just wanted to talk about it without the looks and strained words; he wanted an outside party to understand what it had been like.

Walking out of the lift, it only took another minute to make it to the lounge, hands in his pockets as he stepped foot inside the room, automatically finding Jack. ]

Hey.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I should be honored, then. [He says, flashing a smile at the other man at the 'stick with you' comment. He wonders if he's the first that Peter's telling about this. It sounds like it, from those words. Even before his brother. Jack's not quite sure what to make about that, although he supposes if something like this were to happen to him, he'd have a hard time telling it to the people closest to him as well - to Ianto - himself.

He sits back in his seat and crosses his arms across his chest.] Tell me about it. I've got experience with time travel, memory gaps, and I can sympathize. It's no walk in the park, that's for sure.

[ Peter wants to say he should be, but those aren't the right words. He's not sure honor has much to do with it but at the end of the day, it's just semantics. Peter needs to talk to someone and somehow Jack just fits the bill. He's a friend, and he (hopefully) won't hate him for what's transpired. For the things he's had to do to get by. Because he has to say it to someone else, just to know it was as real as he believes it to be.

Peter nods along slowly, agreeing easily. ] Understatement. [ Of the century and longer. ] It was twelve hours- my five years. To everyone else the reality of it should be simple but five years was exactly as long as it felt. Those years were still real.

They were. Just as real as those twelve hours were. What you've gotta remember is that time...it isn't a straight line. [Jack leans forward again.] It can do all kinds of crazy things, when you start messing with it. Throw in something like the Tranquility's malfunctioning jump drive and you get situations like this. People being plucked out of their own time, brought on this ship. People being plucked off the ship, sent back home. People jumping between them, like you did.

[He takes in a breath.] That's the running theory, at least.

It's a theory that makes sense to me. Completely. Considering how I can't remember my first seven months here because I first showed up from a future I don't live in now. I met that future version of myself - it's a future we put an end to, a future I died in. [ It's convoluted as it is complicated, but Peter doesn't know of a better way to say it. At least not really. ]

You'd think it'd try to make some kind of sense, but there's too many alternate.. futures. Realities. Except people don't look at all like they're real. So my niece and now my brother aren't going to think what I lived through counts. Let alone understand anything that happened. [ a beat ] Not that I expect them to.

It counts. [Jack's voice is surprisingly firm in that.] Just because you don't share the experience doesn't mean that it doesn't count. You remember it, don't you? You will continue to remember it, whether you want to or not. It counts.

[He realizes belatedly that he may or may not have just gotten a little too serious about that, so he takes a deep breath and steps back from the situation for a moment. Shit, that's going to require some explanation too.] ...there's a year of my memory that never never happened. Not really. But I lived through it. Some seriously dark things happened, terrible things. A bad person was using a paradox machine to do horrible things. We were just lucky that once we took the machine apart, everything reverted. Like that year never was. But we lived it, those of us at the heart of it. We remember it. It's the kind of thing that stays with you. Like I said, time isn't a straight line, and the rules of it are...well. Finicky, at best.

So it doesn't matter whether it's a shared experience or not. If it's yours, it matters.

[ Peter stays silent, looking solemn at best as Jack speaks. He can't relate to some of it because it's a story that's not his. But he can relate to having time taken away, to being stuck in your own reality that moved along faster than everyone else's. That doesn't exist to anyone but you; your own horrors are something that nobody else can feel or see or understand.

He nods, finally, trying to think of what he's even supposed to say next. Where he should go from here. ] We didn't have anyone to save. To fix. [ Except for Peter. They had to fix Peter. ]

We just had to get back. We- My five years were spent with someone else. [ Peter stares somewhere over Jack's head, considering his own words before willing himself to say them. ] The man who killed my brother, who's killed countless others and terrorized the rest of us. He and I got- [ Close. But he doesn't say it. Because there's infinitely more to it than that. ] We were stuck in an empty city. Inside of a telepathic nightmare. My home, New York. But it was just us. Completely alone. Trying to remember how to be real.

A telepathic nightmare. [Jack repeats, mulling the phrasing over.] Did time pass while you were there, or was it timeless? [Jack had something of a similar experience again, getting stuck in a time loop with his former partner, the man who now goes by Captain John Hart. Two weeks that had lasted two years. But this isn't about him so that isn't either here or there.]

Time passed. Sylar kept more track of it than I did.

[ It was true enough; Sylar was the one who'd first stated how long it had been when he'd shown up and Sylar was the one who spent days working on his clocks while Peter hammered away at the damn wall. And while he wasn't watching the time go by, that didn't mean that it stopped altogether. It was confusing. But all Peter knew was that it was five years worth of confusion. ] Still flowed differently.

Sylar. [The name sounds familiar. Jack may have heard of or seen the man, on board the Tranquility, at one point. The other part, though. Being stuck in a time loop with someone who's committed a crime such as that. Growing close to a person who has done unspeakable things, and yet somehow having a bond with them. Perhaps that might be what's at the heart of this matter.]

When you say that he 'killed your brother', you mean...?

I mean he murdered Nathan. And then they- [ Peter waves one of his hands, mixing up the air and trying to make sense of a muddle of words that can't possibly be pressed into one sentence. Peter doesn't really know how to explain all the things they did, but now it's only gotten that much more confusing. Sylar's still become some twisted part of Nathan, his memories, and now it's all he has left, from both of them. ]

They- my mom - made it more complicated than she should have. But Nathan isn't alive any more back home. I gave the eulogy at his funeral, I was the only one that could.

[Jack nods. He thought as much. He sits back in his seat, nursing his drink for a moment, before feeling compelled to ask, as delicately as he can:] Does Nathan know about that part? His own murder?

[A number of people on the Tranquility are dead, back in their own worlds, Ianto included. But Jack doesn't know one way or the other about Nathan's past, or future. He's just started to get to know the other man better recently, and he doesn't strike him as the sort to be dwelling on something like that, but then again maybe he just wouldn't dwell? Better let Peter unravel this mystery for him, he decides.]

He knows he's going to die, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't know Sylar kills him. [ Peter says it bluntly because it's the only way to say it, staring at Jack like he's waiting for the impending doom of whatever question might be next. Like the ones about what happened after Nathan's murder; just how hard Peter tried to get him back.

So Peter says it before he can be asked, almost sinking lower into his chair as he eyes the liquor. ] He dies before he's actually dead. Before I even knew he was dead; I never even had the chance to save him. [ Peter shakes his head, starts again. ] After he was murdered, my mother... she had the telepath I know, -the same one that stuck me in Sylar's head - try to turn Sylar into my brother.

She needed him to still be alive, i'm not gonna say that we all didn't need him to be there, but she needed him the way she always had. To save things politically. But they transplanted all of Nathan's memories into Sylar's head using clairsentience and Matt forced him to shapeshift into my brother. They turned him into Nathan and had us all fooled for weeks.

[ Peter has to wonder if even half of that made sense, but he looks back up morosely, hating the way all of it sounds. ]

Edited 2014-07-20 22:25 (UTC)

[Jack takes in a deep breath and then lets it out slowly, swearing under his breath just soft enough that the nanites don't pick up the translation. Losing a brother is never easy, Jack knows that all too well, and Peter knows he knows that for that matter as well, having shared his memories of Gray. But losing a child? Jack has experience with that too. Losing a grandchild even, for that matter. However, as much as he would love to get them back, as much as he would fight to do so, that? That's not right.]

I'm sorry. [he says, gently.]

[ It's not the first time he's heard it - Sylar apologized thousands of times, maybe even more - but it's different coming from an altogether outside source. From someone who wasn't there through all of it and could only begin to imagine what it was like in the absurd thick of it. ]

Me too. [ Peter manages to make it sound appreciative and solemn all at once, not wanting to diminish a word Jack's said. Nobody else has heard any of this yet and Peter can only appreciate the fact that he's listening in the first place. ] I never actually thought i'd lose him.

And now i'm stuck with Sylar. [ But that he just can't make himself sound any worse than exasperated about that one. ]

[Jack has played many roles over the years. Captain and mentor happen to have been some of the most recent, and these are the roles that he pulls from to continue this conversation as best he can. He hasn't always been the greatest choice, in these sorts of situations. But he's getting there.]

Stuck with him? [Jack catches that he's not much more than exasperate about that either. Certainly doesn't sound upset or bitter, which were worthy emotions to be feeling, in such a circumstance.]

[ Peter isn't looking for anything in specific - not from Jack. They've shared memories, a few conversations, but most of all, he's someone who's left he can remember. Jack is there, and he's a shoulder who's disconnected from all the rest. He doesn't have the same background that Claire does, and he isn't Nathan. He's all the things he needs in someone he can shelve his grief onto. ]

Not even stuck. [ How the hell is he supposed to explain it? ] Before Sylar I was starting to lose it. Everything. I'd already sold almost everything I owned, i'd given up on everyone - all I was doing was working. I disconnected from everyone. Then he murdered Nathan and I lost the one person I had left that meant more than everything. And then I ended up stuck for five years with a man who wouldn't give up until I learned how to accept him for what he is. For all of his mistakes. For what he's done.

I forgave him. Figured out how to do it without losing what I had left of my brother. [ And there would be a rash of guilt; Peter cringing like Nathan's standing in the room listening. ] He's the first person I've forgiven since everything started.

[Jack may be oblivious about some things, but he isn't blind.] You're worried about what they would think of you, if they knew. [Half a question, half a statement.] Your brother, in particular. Am I right?

[He reaches across to put a hand on the other man's knee.] It's okay. You've been through a lot. It would be harder to go through those five years with that guy and not get along with him. He was effectively everything that you had, for that time, yeah?

[ Peter doesn't have to say that Jack's right when they both know that he is. When he's got it right on the nose and Peter's left sitting there like a kid who thinks he's about to lose his favorite puppy. Jack's comfort is faint gloss over everything but he still sighs while his mind immediately dredges up explanations as to why nothing's alright.

And why he misses Sylar too damn much. ] He was the only thing that was real. We were. He kept me sane. But if Nathan even comes close to finding out that Sylar's become a part of my life... [ Fill in the blanks; Peter didn't know what else to say and he looks at Jack helplessly. ]

I didn't think he was going to come back.

[Jack nods, quiet for a moment. Of course he can fill in the blanks. He doesn't need to know Sylar personally to understand that he might not necessarily be the sort of person that Nathan would approve of his brother befriending. But circumstances having been what they were... He can't blame Peter for it. Hell, looking back on his time spent in the loop with John Hart, he understands all too well.]

You didn't think Sylar was going to come back? [he prompts, gently.] Or Nathan? [He wants to make sure that he's following the path of this conversation as close as he can.]

Nathan. He's died before and he's--

[ For a few seconds, Peter feels guilty for straight up unloading. But he just wants someone to tell him he hasn't screwed it all up; that there's some amount of forgiveness to be found for the things that he's done. He's only ever wanted to make up for the atrocities that they've caused, his family, all of them- and he never wanted this to become one more. This kind of a mistake was just not one he'd ever thought he'd make. ]

He was kind of hard to kill. If somebody could evade death it was Nathan. But this time was the actual end. I watched him go, I saw his body being kept in a freezer, there wasn't any coming back from it. [ He shrugs, as if apologizing for the mystery of it. ] And now he's here.

[Jack's gaze softens.] He's been here, Peter. It's your experiences that have changed, for good or for worse. That's probably the worst of it, am I right? Trying to adjust to the way things were, when in your head, everything's changed?

[He really shouldn't feel bad for unloading on him - if anyone understands a situation like this, if anyone understands guilt, it's Jack Harkness. Don't worry, Peter. He's getting to the reassurances. He wants to make sure you've said everything that you need to get out before he starts in on them, though.]

[ Nathan's been here, Peter knows that. Before he left, before he went back home, Nathan was here. Peter was only gone for a month and Nathan didn't disappear in that amount of time, but time's gotten more than twisted and now Peter's left trying to decipher the in's and out's of what's happened when he wasn't looking.

After a few more seconds Peter finally nods, trying the lessen the weight of the facts. ] He's always been here, I know. He was here before I went home and he's still here, but he isn't anymore where i've come from. I just can't bridge the gap as easily as I want to be able to- everything from when I was here before, it seems different. It's all changed.

[Jack nods sympathetically.] It's a doozy to have to adjust to a return like that, I'll give you that much. I don't know Nathan half as well as you do, but I do know how strong-willed he can be. And I understand how you might not want to tell him everything.

I guess the question is what do you want. [He shifts in his seat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees to gaze at Peter.] Coming back here, the Tranquility is offering you an opportunity. You can't change your past, his future. But you do have here and now. And that's certainly something, isn't it?

What do I want?

[ That's not a question he's leveled with very often and Peter stalls for as long as he can. He's not even sure how to start answering that question even though Jack's completely right, there's no doubt about it. And that's the most difficult part of all: facing the facts of the here and now and wondering where he's supposed to end up from there. Because it is something, it's more than something and Peter can't even begin to put the value onto that. ]

I just want it to be the way it used to be. [ Peter stares back at Jack, wondering about the impossibilities of what he thinks he wants. ] Before I had to work my ass off to keep him alive.

Edited 2014-07-25 17:44 (UTC)

[Jack is quiet for a moment, fighting with what to say. Although it's not the same situation that he's been through, it's eerily similar to his own reaction to being here on the Tranquility for the first time. He's still not quite sure he'll ever be okay with going home, not when he knows what he's going back to, not when he knows what he's losing.]

I wish I could tell you that it's easy to forget all that stuff, but then I'd be lying to you. It's something that you're going to have to live with. And sometimes it'll be easier than other times. [He's quiet for a moment, before he feels compelled to ask:] Never mind how you think they'd react, do you want Nathan to know what's going on with you?

[ It was a good question and one Peter mulled over long enough that he had to lean back in his chair with a quiet 'oof' sounding from the material. His gaze scattered all across the room as he thought, picking up pieces of what he wanted and what he thought Nathan might be able to stand. But Jack hadn't asked what he thought Nathan would want, it was another question centered wholly around him and Peter finally went back to staring at Jack like the other man was supposed to understand just by looking. ]

I don't know. I want him to know so he understands, so he doesn't think i'm trying to hide things from him but I don't want to tell him everything I did without him there. I went after Sylar one day, and I- [ Nailgunned him until he screamed bloody murder ] I tried to get my brother back by any means necessary but all I did was make Nathan realize he couldn't do it any longer. I don't want him to know what the memory of him turns into.

And i'll lie if I have to, to keep him from finding out.

[Jack nods in response to Peter's response. There's no good or bad decision to make, in a situation like this, and Peter should know that. It's his decision to make, and whatever he decides, he should know that.]

That's fair. There's hope that he'll respect that, as well. I don't know that it really works like this here, but as far as time travel is concerned under normal circumstances, people generally shouldn't know what's coming. [He puts his drink down, steepling his fingers in front of him.] I know it's not technically my place to say, but. For what it's worth, I think you're making good decisions here. Sometimes it's better not knowing some things. Better having hope. Even if it's false. Even if everything about the situation is shit. That's been my experience at least.

[He waves a hand in front of him, remembering Flat Holm Island and the rift refugees. Jonah Bevan in particular, and his mother, they sat pretty front and forward in his memory, since he was how Gwen found out about the island in the first place.] I'm not sure you really want me going into detail but the fact still stands.

((ooc: my apologies for the wait! boston comic con was the 8th-10th and i had people in from out of town for it so i kind of lost track of tags for a while there >> back now though!))

I don't have an issue with details.

[ Granted, this is the most he's talked in a long ass time, Peter's getting to the point where he's willing to listen to anything that's not the sound of his own voice. Words that have everything to do with Nathan and his existence, something that continues to be as terrifying as it's been for the past few days. All Peter wants to do is talk it away, make it more real, do something so that when he wakes up to find his brother dead all over again, it won't kill him in the exact same way. ]

But no, I know you're right. Messing with time- telling people what's going to happen or just going back to try to change things, just never goes as well as people think it will. Been through it more than a few times now and i'm not sure- [ He shrugs, brushing aside the comment and starting again. None of that has anything to do with anything; they're talking about Nathan. ]

The way Nathan dies, he just doesn't need to know. I wouldn't even know where to start.

[[ ooc; IT'S NOT A PROBLEM AT ALL as you can see i took a year and a half to tag you back which i have no good excuses for apart from minor burnout. so really, it's not a problem at all. ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

there ain't no rest for the wicked

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject