pushfall | ☏ ( ataraxion ) contact

[ Claire makes a sound like all the air has gone out of her. In reality, she's just taking a seat. The creak of her cot under her bent legs might give that away. Rather than just firing off an answer automatically, she actually stops and considers what she knows. Most of it isn't very pretty. ]

I know what it is. I've seen it in action. I know what it can do. Matt Parkman, right?

[ He listened, interested as he was distant. Peter took every and any opportunity to stretch this out as far as possible, trying to come up with his own words as Claire found hers. ]

Right.

[ Peter keeps coming back to the thought that there's no good way to go about telling this; the only thing he's got to give is everything that happened but it's all wrong. It's all about perspective and finding a way to give his own without rendering his guilt into something more is something that Peter hasn't quite gotten down yet. ]

Matt trapped Sylar in his own mind and then started- he was gonna build a brick wall around him. Keep him in his basement.

[ It's a little difficult to listen to that. Not because sometimes she thinks that she wouldn't do the same thing to Sylar - or worse - given the chance, but to know that someone she used to regard in a certain way would feel it necessary to do something like that... it's always hard to swallow when she's confronted with the idea that they have been pushed to their edges.

Then again, how can she be surprised? Look what he did when Nathan really died. Claire knows that this is going further than that, though. She can already tell. ]

Sounds like Matt got pushed to a breaking point.

Yeah, well- Sylar's good at doing that to people.

[ That's not to say that he hasn't gotten over that particular attribute but he doesn't need to go barreling into this head first and proclaiming his newfound friendship. He'll get there; he has no intention of lying about it (especially not to Claire, never to Claire) but he's not quite sure how yet. Not when five years passing in the blink of an eye is anything but kind when it comes to claiming you're actually perfectly sane. ]

Only problem was I needed his help. Sylar's. And I had to go inside his head to get it.

That's putting it mildly.

[ It's never going to matter what he does to make up for it, how much he says that he's different, wants to be, needs to figure this out or that out. His approach is always going to be all wrong. He's always going to be the man who terrorized her for years, murdered people to get to her. The list is endless. He's always going to be Sylar, and she's always going to understand when and why people have a problem with him. ]

You went inside Sylar's head.

[ If she sounds incredulous... it's because she is. And not about the going into someone else's head part. Come on. This is them. Being inside Sylar's sounds like a nightmare in itself. ]

[ Complicated is something that Peter's grown used to but the problem is that he hasn't had to explain any of it to anyone. Nobody's needed a story because they've all been living it, nobody needs a recap of the shit you're still wading through and Peter doesn't know how to explain something he only just really started to comprehend. Especially when he has to explain growing used to a man that everyone else has deemed a monster.

Especially a monster that's attacked Claire more than once. But forgiveness is a particular kind of beast and one that Peter hasn't learned how to grapple with around others.

It's been a long time since... people. ]

It's not as bad as it sounds- [ ... well. ] Okay, maybe it was. But not for the reasons that you're thinking, I wasn't trapped inside of Sylar's free roaming mind. Matt had trapped Sylar inside of a construct of New York city. Except it was one with no people. Completely empty. He was supposed to be alone forever, his worst fear.

I just ended up getting stuck there with him. [ Peter takes a breath, only looking to hesitate. ] For five years.

Not as bad as it -

[ She talks under him, under the timbre of his voice, and doesn't say anything else, letting him continue until she's sure that he's finished. And even then, what do you say? He's describing her actual worst nightmare, alone at the end of the world with Sylar, and it sort of seizes her up inside and chokes her vocal chords into inaction. ]

What did he - did he do anything? Did he hurt you? [ Claire knows that is a completely absurd statement, but about a thousand thoughts fly through her brain faster than she can latch onto one and pull. ] How could that not be as bad as it sounds?

Because it was worse than that when the whole thing started.

[ Peter grumbles under his breath, remembering back to the start of the five year debacle. Remembering how much of a pain in the ass Sylar was with his constant need to chat and stay close and be somewhere he could see Peter at any given point in time. It might've kept Sylar sane but for over a year it drove Peter off the deep end and there's no way to explain any of it. It's years worth of things to tell, to explain, to give light to, and Peter can't even scratch the surface. ]

He didn't hurt me, Claire. Did the opposite. Everything he could possibly do to be... closer. He wanted the company so he didn't lose his mind and he wanted to apologize every chance he got.

[ She can feel the anger and bile rising up in the back of her throat. Not directed at Peter, but at that stupid monster who isn't even here for her to march up to and punch in the face. There's no way imaginable that she could ever conceive being trapped alone with him in that kind of a scenario, and Claire isn't even sure that it makes sense but plenty of things have failed to make sense over the last few years. ]

What did he apologize for? How could he possibly begin to say that he was sorry for any of the things that he's done?

[ The contempt in her voice surprises her. She feels like she wants to scream, and she doesn't even know why. ]

[ This is going exactly the way he didn't want it to go. Not that he thought it'd really have the chance to go any other way, with Claire losing her mind about acceptances that were undeserved and apologies that shouldn't have been given to start with. He can't blame her, not even in the slightest. But Peter's already wrapped his mind around what's happened; it's everything else that just doesn't compute. Which is what makes it so damn hard to explain - he knows why and he knows why it happened to him but making that make sense for anyone else seems utterly absurd. ]

He apologized for Nathan. I think he apologized for everything he could apologize for, but it was Nathan that he... wouldn't stop saying it.

[ It's harder without Sylar here to back the words; a changed man for a changed mind but Peter could still hold onto his beliefs if only because it had been years. And because of so many other reasons. ]

We couldn't leave, Claire. The whole thing, it was up to me.

[ Claire makes a noise in the back of her throat that sounds distinctly like a scoff. She'd had her own alone time with the man in question back in Virginia, and even if they had managed not to murder each other, even if she'd developed some sort of bizarre tolerance for his general existence - not like he was going anywhere anytime soon, besides - that doesn't forgive all the shit that he's done to them.

But she tucks it away, most of it. Some of it still simmers at the front because she's an open book that way, especially with Peter. Heart on your sleeve, that kind of thing. She won't forgive him for Nathan the way that she won't forgive Parkman or even her father. You can put it aside, tuck it away, but it's always going to be there. ]

You mean you had to - you got the two of you out of there? [ Like a light, she recalls. ] I remember now. I remember standing on top of the Ferris Wheel and seeing the two of you.

[ She isn't accusing him, and there isn't an ounce of that in her tone, but the momentary stab of confusion she had felt before taking the plunge suddenly makes a little more sense in her head. ]

We were there. I had to get him out to save Emma. So he could save all of them.

[ It's a nearly rehearsed line and something that Peter still doesn't say lightly, if only because of the number of times he had to say it before now. The number of times he had to say it to Sylar in an attempt to cajole him into behaving himself, as if convincing him of the fact could change whether or not they were stuck in the middle of an empty city. But it had changed nothing until they were out, when they were finally able to make it a reality. ]

That's what I went in to get him in the first place. I'd dreamed about it- Sylar saving her. I needed his help, mom was just going to let her kill everyone, and then I got stuck for five years with a man I couldn't even begin to forgive. Not after what he'd done to Nathan. [ As always, everything is twisted together and difficult to untangle, rooted in their abysmal family in ways the both of them know. ]

But apparently, we only got to get out if I... moved on, I don't know. It was the only way I could break through the wall even if I still don't know if it was the right thing to do. But I was stuck with him for five years. Five years and all I had was him.

[ He paused for another second, willing the words to make some kind of sense. ] You know me, Claire. [ You know I can't do this alone. ]

[ It's so much to process. More than her brain might actually be able to, given what it's just been through. Claire balks at the idea of Sylar being able to save anyone. She's seen his stints at redemption, and it's ended up with her dead on a slab somewhere, with Nathan dead, with some warped sense of... whatever it is he constitutes it as. There had not been one second that she regretted leaving him to burn in that building, save for the minute she wished she would have pushed that piece of glass deeper into his skull. She doesn't even have enough room to be angry at Angela, right now. She's too small a girl to possibly contain so much resentment.

Distantly, she wonders if this is similar to how Peter felt in Kirby Plaza. ]

Down there in the corridors, I somehow ended up back in my house, in California. It was so strange. It was like... nothing was out of place, nothing had changed. I was right back where I've been wanting to be since before I even got here. Except it was... it was like when he came and - [ Claire doesn't actually possess the vocabulary. How do you describe that kind of violation? That kind of responsibility that has set in as a result of what she was incapable of stopping? The only way she knows how is - ] I know you. You aren't alone, Peter.

[ As if she could ever leave him to deal with something alone. ]

[ He doesn't know how to relate - to the sort of overwhelming anger that seems willing to eat you alive, yes, but not with what happened on the ship. He feels far too distant, as if those five plus years away left him hung out to dry, now wondering how the hell he's supposed to come back to this world without always being just a little disjointed. But he has to be here in full, he has to find a way to live with the forgiveness he's doled out and he has to remember how to be here and there all at once.

But most of all he has to remember what it's like to have someone that isn't Sylar. He's goddamn mind-melded with the man, there's no way to disconnect. Worst of all, there's no way to explain it all without pushing himself even further away. ]

Are you okay?

[ He might not be alone, but he has to ask it. Not because he thinks he can fix it if she isn't, but he wants to be there as much as he can; he wants to believe he can still be a part of this family. ] Did you find your way back out or did the ship do it for you?

[ What she isn't or is reading between the lines, Claire can't be sure. She knows that she's more seething anger and resentment than a lot of people, that she has a fuze that burns and that when it explodes, the results can be catastrophic. In Peter's quiet pauses, she can't be sure what she infers, but she doesn't want to think on it too much. Everything is still too close, too loud, the memory of her California home too bright and immediate when she closes her eyes. It's easier to focus on the questions. ]

I'm fine. [ It isn't a lie, but that's what she always says. She's fine. She's okay. She's always okay and she's always going to be okay. Has to. ] I made it out on my own, but I couldn't tell you how, so maybe it was the ship just deciding that I'd had enough. Some of the things down there.

[ She doesn't need to finish that thought for him to understand, she's sure. ]

[ Peter wishes there wasn't anything to be read between the lines. That there wasn't anything more than distaste and horror running through his veins, a severe hatred for Sylar stamping out his intuitions just like it had always been. If only it where that simple; take back five years and give him something easier to stand all at once. But that's not how time wore on and it's not how things panned out - nothing's been simple for them in far too long and for once, Peter knows there's no way to fix it. He can't take back the decisions that've been made and the thing's he had to do by way of sacrificing everything else.

If only she really was fine, maybe Peter would feel a little more put together as he tries to find his words. ]

No way to know apart from thinking the ship even has enough of a heart to pull you out before it got to be too much. [ Peter pauses for a second, rechecking his words. ] Not that anything really cares about how much we're all willing to endure.

[ Claire snorts derisively, taking a few moments to stay quiet and pick at the ends of her hair. ]

Honestly, I wouldn't put it past the ship to pull us out of the fray just because it got bored with the current torture session and decided it has something better in mind further down the line.

[ It's easier to talk about the ship than it is to talk about Peter being stuck somewhere that no one could reach him, that she couldn't. And what was she doing at that point? Running around the countryside, trying to parse through her impressions of Samuel, gearing up to expose everyone? There's no use in feeling guilty about it now, she realizes, while she takes a breath and lets it out, frustrated. ]

How is it that people have been stuck here for so long and still haven't managed to figure it out?

Because they get a little wrapped up in what's happening now. What they're in the middle of.

[ Though, he almost laughed at Claire's idea of the going's ons. Almost. Peter doesn't really do the laughing thing (a fact he knows Claire is aware of) but it's still sadistically humorous in all the wrong kind of ways. The sad kind of ways. ]

I think it's always got something better coming. Why people think that it's gonna stop anytime soon is beyond me, but i'd be hard pressed to believe it hasn't got things planned out for a good long while. It's ahead of everyone on board and it's got a backseat pass into everything. What it doesn't plan all it has to do is find out.

[ Peter's just running with his own thoughts; nothing that he's thought about too much but simple theories that he still manages to believe in. Not that they're even theories so much as what-should-be-obvious's but maybe it isn't to some people. Peter just doesn't know those people; or maybe he doesn't remember them. ]

Nathan could say it better. [ Because that's not a slight shift of topics. ]

I keep meaning to go back through the Network, look at everything, try to help, but...

[ But if people like Nathan or Peter or Severus haven't managed to figure it out, how is she expected to? Privately, Claire thinks this ship business plays a little like some of Lyle's video games. Too bad she never paid any real amount of attention to any of them. She finds it inherently difficult not to go charging in without even bothering to look over her shoulder, the same way that she would have faced any issue that they needed to deal with at home. All the hesitation she had experienced at one point or another has gone.

The action isn't what scares her. These quiet moments, hushed topics, like discussing the dead, are what really make her nervous. ]

Nathan could say it with a more political spin. [ But she isn't disagreeing. ] How are you, with that?

[ With Nathan, with all of it. She knows he's spoken a little bit of Sylar's position in all of this, but she's not going to forget the desperate look on Peter's face after the funeral, both of them bloody and him just completely lost. ]

[ How is he with that.

Peter freezes, as well as anyone over the phone can freeze, not saying anything for long seconds that leave him feeling as if he's creating his own personal dead air. It's almost easier to talk about Sylar than it is to talk about this, if only because he has no idea how to confront himself. It's like looking at his past through a mirror and seeing the very worst of what he's done shining through. There's nothing simple about it, but when is anything easy - he's already gone over that.

This ship isn't easy, their live aren't easy, and Nathan's apparent inability to stay dead is something that's going to kill Peter if he doesn't watch where he's going. ]

I'm not okay with any of it. [ Oh jesus christ, he's not going to get choked up about this while simultaneously sounding like an asshole. He takes another second, because he doesn't want it to sound all wrong, but he's not sure how to twist his words until they make sense, either. ]

I don't know how to have him back- I don't know how to do this. I can't tell him anything about Sylar, I can't explain anything, and there he is. Just telling me I should stay in comm's for a few days until I get my act together. He's just there. And i'm not mad at him for it, i'd rather have him alive than dead, but accepting it- I can't do it again.

Couldn't even do it the first time.

[ She knows all of it. This constant conflict right underneath your breastbone, a hundred thousand words just trying to get out but no possible way of actually putting them together to form coherent sentences. It's terrible, but some of the pressure in being the only one to have experienced that secret lessens, and she feels a connection with Peter that she hasn't pinged so strongly in what feels like forever, like they're shouldering this burden that they always do, the lines of their shoulders hard against the backdrop of whatever destruction is looming up behind them. ]

I know. [ She says that because it's the only thing she can say, for a moment. ] It's - I can't even - I wouldn't even know where to begin explaining how to push through it. You just have to... you have to just keep pushing. The hardest part is not knowing if it any of it's real, if it's permanent. But we can get each other through it, just like always. Just... please don't sit around listening to police scanners and jumping into hostage situations.

[ Her tone is trying for a joke, gently, testing the water, but she's serious, too. She can't lose Peter, not now. ]

[ There's something in knowing he doesn't have to be the only one. He might have guilt stacked in weights a mile high, a record of Nathan's face marking each one, but he has someone to stand with in a front against their own lives. Its nigh unbearable, that Nathan has become something to be withstood but it's not so much the man as it is the loss of the space he occupies. And within that is all the problems it creates; each person who finds Nathan important is one more that Peter knows can't possibly understand.

This place has once more made room for a space that only Claire can fill because she's the one that knows. She's the only one who brought Peter back. ]

Don't think I could take on another one? Thought I handled my first one pretty well. Besides, I don't think we've even got any police scanners sitting around, unless I wanted to keep my comm broadcasting the latest reels of information... not a bad idea, actually. [ Peter's teasing right back (sort of) because he knows he has to; because it's the only thing keeping him standing - to know they both have to shoulder through this as long as they're doing it together. But he can't keep the humor around for long, either. ]

Claire, if I stop and think that this is real now, that it's permanent- [ Peter's at a loss for words, needing actions to replicate his feelings when he knows there are none he can take. ] I don't want him to stay dead. But I only just accepted that he is. I moved on, I can't believe I ever- [ Don't say it. ] I can't believe that he's both, even if there's nothing stopping it from being real.

[ She can't even admonish him those habits with any amount of sincerity that isn't hypocritical. After all, she's been berating her friends - how weird is that, to have multiple - for the entire duration of the ship's last descent into madness for running into things they don't stand a chance against and instead asking them to allow her to take the brunt of things. Claire supposes that she gets that from him, or maybe it's some inherent trait that runs through their bloodline. There's no way of being sure. Either way, she makes a soft sound, like a snort, as amused as it's not, sort of jaded and resigned. Instead of parsing through what she's feeling, she settles on frustration, or at least exasperation, because - ]

That's exactly - that's how I felt, the second that I saw him. You can't... I couldn't figure out how to relate those two ideas with each other, when we'd just buried him so soon before I showed up here. [ If she's being honest, Claire still isn't sure she's managed to marry those two ideas. ] It made it felt like all that grieving didn't matter, especially when I didn't know what was going on, being here. Now, it doesn't make it any less real, it doesn't make it matter any less, but it makes it - [ An exhale, sharp and loud. ] - it's just hard. You would think with the way our world works, maybe we would get used to it. There's no getting used to it.

I gave up on getting used to it awhile ago.

[ Sometimes Peter wants to go back to the moment where he first met Claire and impress upon the fact that she saved him from his solitude. That she was the one that brought him back from the fear of a life spent alone; away from a brother who refused to understand and a family that filled his head with lies of an illness he couldn't possibly have. Because instead of feeling crazy, around Claire he only ever feels sane. Like they're able to fit their thoughts together and somehow become a reasonable human - except for all those times they do really stupid shit - one that makes sense and feels a deeper sense of reality. Claire always solidified things, grounded him back down, reminded him that he was someone he could see in others. ]

I'm just glad Nathan doesn't want an explanation, because I don't have one to give. At least one that he'd understand - I don't even know if he'd be able to stomach it. But he shouldn't have to, either. Shouldn't have to hear about what happens after his own death. [ Peter's shaking his head, even if it can't be seen, thinking through ideas as he's saying them. ]

You're right, it doesn't- Being back here with Nathan doesn't make our mourning mean anything less. It doesn't make anything we went through less real, but it doesn't make Nathan less real either. It'll be treating him like he's just Nathan that'll be the hard part. I know he knows, but he doesn't need to live with the idea of it, either. [ He pauses to exhale; strained. ] But I don't think I can watch him die a second time.

[ He's right, of course, that has been the hardest part: looking at Nathan and knowing what's coming and being unsure of how to step around him. She lost him just when she was getting to know him, and resigned herself to never having the opportunity. She and Peter are two sides of the same coin, in that respect. He's had years and decades to know him and lost him over a prolonged period that shouldn't have happened to begin with, and she barely knew Nathan and lost him all the same. Now they're back at the middle again and no matter how much they're able to ground each other, in some ways it's never going to be quite enough. ]

I could say that it gets easier, and in some ways it does. Everything we do involves adapting, even the hard stuff. But you don't forget it. It doesn't ever go away. Every time I look at him, it's all I can think about. You just have to... I don't know, Peter. You just have to. [ And as for that last bit. ] He's not gonna die a second time, not here. He's got you and me to make sure of it.

[ It might be a false promise. Neither of them can determine or dictate what the ship decides. They can try, though. The future not being written in stone, and all that. ]

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sorry got a little busy this weekend/computer issues

pssshhh no apologies necessary

/rolls into your arms

/wraps up!!

eeeeee

jfkl; you're awfully lovely

alkjf no u

no no U

i am lovely until i fall asleep

PFFF i guess you're allowed to do that

oh good because i do love to sleep