Live Together, Die Alone

Participants:

brian_icon.gif helena_icon.gif peter2_icon.gif

Scene Title Live Together, Die Alone
Synopsis Brian and Helena meet up with Company Pete to talk about what his duplicate is up to.
Date November 29, 2008

Deveaux Building: Rooftop


In the hours before noon, the ruins of Midtown Manhattan almost look serene from the vantage point of the Deveaux Building. A sea of gray and black set against a gradient of sapphire and azure. The crumbling and crooked buildings that jut up like broken fingers from the ground to claw at the sky have a glitter to them, morning dew that still has not faded amidst the crisp and cold air.

Upon the rooftop, a lone figure stands in silent contemplation. His black suit is hardly enough to keep him warm in the near-winter chill, espescially on on this 40th floor rooftop. He leans just to the side of the stone sculpture on the brick railing; two cherubs flanking a ring of stone, one of the cherubs having a bullet hole in his hcest, cracked around the edges.

In one hand, Agent Petrelli examines a spell shell-casing from a nine-millimeter round, sunlight reflecting off of the brass surface. More are scattered at his feet, along with long since dried blood, signs of violence on this rooftop that have puzzled him for days. But he's not here to play detective, not now anyway. He's waiting for someone, waiting for the purpose behind the message delivered to him under the crooked pigeon coops, to be waiting here before noon.

Because something terrible happened.

Helena does not come along. Even though this rooftop is special to her, even though it's a nexus for many things, many people - she breaks her personally felt sanctity of it, because necessity makes demands. So there are perhaps two unexpected things about this meeting. The first is that Helena shows up with a Brian in tow.

The second is that the moment she arrives, even before offering a greeting, the enormous swatch of fabric in her hands is draped over the pigeon cote, shielding the events about to occur from the eyes of the birds.

Brian moves as if he was Helena's shadow. Though rage completely fills him as soon as his grey eyes take in Peter he makes no move. He lets Helena move forward, and he himself stays back towards where they came from, watching Peter with an intense amount of anger and hatred from under the cap he wears. He is pale, and doesn't look himself. Out of it.

"Give me strength to forgive Father.. please.." Comes the soft whispers through his teeth. "I need you Father. Help me.." His prayers ease him a little bit. Help his heart rate slow down, ease that overwhelming hatred for the man on the other side of the roof. Perhaps Brian will truly be able to forgive. Nevermind that hanging at his side with his knuckles white is a .40…

The sound of footsteps doesn't deter Peter from his examination of the shell casing, even if that isn't why he's here. His eyes divert over to the coop, though, when Helena covers it. His eyes drift over to Brian, deep set and darkly shadowed eyes from circles that rim them. He looks just as sick and just as tired as the other Peter. But he's clean shaven, shorter and more styled hair, and he's wearing a suit; not leather everything.

"Who's this?" Peter nods his nose towards Brian, not recognizing him in the least. The gun hardly even warrants notice, save for that it's too big of a caliber to have been where the shell in his hand came from. Peter stays leaned up against the wall, looking back and forth from Helena to Brian. He can tell something is up.

As she finishes draping over the pigeon coop, Helena's head turns, and her eyes alight on the gun. "No." she lets out a hiss, and then quite deliberately, moves into the space between Peter and Brian, a hand out toward the latter. "Give it." she demands through clenched teeth. "You give it over right now." Over her shoulder to Peter, "Your duplicate killed one of Brian's. As an experiment. To see if he would survive it. I think the idea is that if Brian survived, so could he, so he's hell bent on killing you. That's just the start of what's going on. I hope you can make time, because there's…there's a lot." She turns her gaze back to Brian. "In the last two days I've been attacked by Sylar, lied to by someone close to me, and have a friend being held by gangers in Chinatown. Do you really want to add betraying my trust to the list?"

Grey eyes examine the young woman for a moment. A light puff of air is exhaled as the sidearm is flipped around in his hand so he is holding it by the barrel. Stepping towards Helena, Brian hands over the gun without any fuss at all. Any external fuss that is. Taking a step back the young man tucks his hands into his coat pockets, still watching Peter intently. Wondering if this one can fly too..

Tucking the bullet casing away in his jacket pocket, Peter leans off of the brick railing and takes a few steps over to stand behind Helena. His expression shifts from confusion, to horror as she describes what happened. "He… he what?" His eyes lift up to Brian, then wander away with his mouth slacked open. "I — " His eyes follow the gun, one that makes so much more sense now. "I'm… I'm sorry." But there's something in Peter that's also grateful too. Now he knows that he could survive killing his doppleganger, he could survive that trauma. He could be the one left standing. His eyes narrow for just a moment in silent consideration of that.

"Wait — " Then it hits him, "Sylar attacked you?" He visibly bristles, one hand coming to rest on Helena's shoulder as he slowly moves to circle around and stand in front of her. "Where, when? Where did he go? Do you know where he is?" If there is one unifying factor between the two Peters, it is their single-minded obsession with Sylar, and with revenge.

"In Central Park." She takes a moment to relate all the details, following up with how Abby healed her. Even the process of dealing with her own terror is pushed aside as she makes sure the safety's off and tucks the gun into the pocket of her jacket. "Look, the other Peter doesn't realize it, but his experiment was flawed from the start. Brian makes multiple selves, and they're all the same person, they're all him. There are only two of you, and you're both different. An experiment is only successful if the comparitive conditions are the same, and they're not. Do you understand what I'm saying?" She looks to Brian. "Tell him." she urges.

Don't say anything. You might regret it. A hmph is let out at Peter's apology, as if he doesn't believe it. Not sincere enough.. Though how exactly does someone apologize for unknowingly killing someone else with that someone else still alive? It is certainly a new experience for everyone, perhaps that is the correct response. Perhaps not. Would all he have to do is say sorry if he cut off the other Peter's head off? That wouldn't be so bad…

Like a protective dog, Brian instantly moves forward when Peter's hand goes to Helena's shoulder. His brows narrowing. His grip would tighten on his gun, but it has been confiscated. So instead he just stands and tries to make himself look as ominous as possible. Though it's difficult to do when you look like you just rolled out of a hospital bed/funeral parlor. Grey eyes rest on Helena for a moment once she urges Brian to tell him…

"It would be safer to unify with him. You're both going to get weaker and weaker until that happens. If one of you gets killed.. you'll get sick. It's.. crippling." He explains softly.

Peter tilts his head to the side, following Helena's order to Brian to look over at the man behind him. He watches cautiously, eyes driftin gup and down until he hears the explanation of what should happen. Brows furrow together, and Peter looks away with a troubled expression. "That… might not be as easy as it sounds." Peter takes a few steps away from Helena, to give himself space to think. She's seen this look on his face before, in the days leading up to the raid on the Primatech facility; troubled and weary.

"I don't know how your power works, it — things are complicated." He turns to look over at Brian, "Since he split off from me, my powers have been split down the middle. He's got some, I've got the rest. I haven't gained any new powers I wasn't already aware of since then, so I only have to guess that if he's been finding new ones, I haven't been getting them. He can fly, I can't." Peter rolls one shoulder, "I can stop time, he can't." Or so Peter thinks, anyway. "Some of the stuff seems shared, like our regeneration. I — I don't know how it was decided who got what power, but there's a lot I can't do."

Peter shifts his focus over to Helena, "If he wants me dead that badly, it's not going to be long before he comes looking for me. He knows where I work, and there's only so long I can hide for. Even if I wanted to merge back with him, there's…" Peter's eyes divert from Helena, over to the bullet hole in one of the twin cherubs, "I don't even know how, or if he'd stop trying to kill me long enough to do it."

"What makes you think it's going to be easy?" Helena shakes her head. "There is a strong possibility that if you kill him, it'll kill you. If that's what you want to do," she swallows, "I'll help you whatever you decide. If you're still capable of absorbing powers and just haven't encountered people yet, I'm prepared to talk to Phoenix members with abilities I think you can use to help you. But for merging…" Again, she looks over at Brian. "I'm hoping that Brian can help you with that. But this needs to be resolved." She turns back to Peter. "Sylar knows you're split in two, and he wants to kill you both. He's hooked up with some kind of group now, and they've got their own version of an apocalypse that they're looking to bring down." Live together, die alone, dammit.

"You can't fly." Brian repeats in a very quiet voice. His eyes flick for a milisecond to the edge of the building before going back to Peter. He watches Helena as she gives her piece and then takes a breath to say something Helena most likely would not want him to say. "I don't think you'll die if you kill him." He pipes out. "Even if you hate him, and he hates you.. Which is fucked up all together and obviously you're gonna need to seek therapy. Because you've obviously got issues, if you kill him, you will survive physically. But it will be like killing part of yourself. Time might pass and you might feel a little better.. But I'm not sure you would ever fully recover." Brian says, though who he is talking to is not quite certain, as if a narrative for himself. Then a shrug. "When I merge.. It's easy because I know I want to do it.. If one party is unwilling." He brings his palms up. "That could be difficult. And if he can regenerate.. It might be difficult to knock him out, you know?"

"Damnit." All of that comes as one blow after another, and Peter's left with his head hanging. "No I — I've been picking up some tricks here and there. The Company has been helpful, they've — There's a lot of good people there, despite what's going on. Good people put in bad situations, hands are tied, it's… complicated." Peter looks up to Helena and raises a hand, tiny little arcs of electricity crackling over his fingertips. "I got this from Elle Bishop." Eyes divert over to a stray brick settled up on the rooftop. Peter dismisses the electricit and snaps his fingers, and there's a shearing sound as the brick slides into two pieces. "I think I might need all of the tricks I can get though."

"I'm not sure I want him back, he's… He's everything I always hated about myself, all of my anger, all of my frustration. It's like he took all of that and left me with the guilt." Peter's eyes close and he turns away, getting too emotional for a moment and letting it spill out at the others. One slow breath is taken, and he lets his shoulders slouch. "I might get the Company involved. They have two agents tracking him, Niki Sanders and Gwendolyn Wickham. If they borrow the Haitian, I might be able to neutralize him." Peter furrows his brow, "God, I don't evem know what would happen if he did that."

Helena watches as Peter uses Elle's power. For some reason, the display leaves her feeling decidedly unhappy. "You'd go to the Company before you'd let us help you?" That doesn't sit well with Helena at all. "Have you forgotten how the Company's helped the government?" Peter's pain effects her though, and she reaches out to take his hand. "I did say whatever you decide." Yeah, she's really, really not happy. "Let us know what you decide to do. Brian and I have a date in Chinatown this evening. You remember that group of Triad morons who were chasing me that night? They've got one of the Ferrymen."

Brian watches Peter idly, and then Helena as she reaches out to take his hand. A hint of jealousy stabs him in the back through the fog of all his other ailments. "Haitian?" The youn man asks in vague interest with a slight tilt of his head. Then once Helena informs him of the Chinatown situation, the young man nods.

Peter hisses out a breath, "I don't trust all of them. I trust people in the Company, some of them more than I trust people I'm related to." He looks up to Helena a bit pleadingly, "It's not that I don't want your help, but if Sylar and my other half are both gunning for me, I don't want you getting caught in the middle. I don't want you, or your people getting hurt." He looks to the brusing on her neck, then back up again. "This isn't Phoenix's battle, this is my fight, and I made it clear that I didn't want anything to do with PARIAH or Phoenix. I'd rather risk Company lives, than risk the lives of people I care about." He manages a faint smile, but it's bittersweet. "I know you care, but I can't — I won't let something like what happened to Brian happen again. I'm — He's dangerous, and with Sylar involved, that's just too much for you to handle. If it comes down to it, I'd rather die. Both of me, than get you hurt…" Brian's question goes unanswered, probably for the best too, knowing too much about the Haitian makes you more prone to forgetting that and much more.

"He killed one of my people." says Helena softly. "And even if there's a survivor," she beckons to Brian, "It's still something to answer for, so don't you say that Phoenix doesn't have a stake in this. Brian lost a part of himself. I'm losing you by inches." She's at the end of her rope. "Let me know what you need from me and mine, just make sure you end this one way or another." Her hand draws away from Peter's, and she she starts to move back to Brian's side.

Though he won't say it. Brian most definitely will be there when the other Peter meets his end. He will make sure of that. The man eyes Peter for a moment. Frowning he slowly goes to turn his back to the man, waiting for Helena to join him.

"I'm going to…" Peter closes his eyes, resting his hand against the side of his head, "I'm going to go look for Hiro." He sounds like a blind person who lost their seeing eye dog. "I — He might be able to… I don't know." Taking a few steps away, the difference between the two Peters is a stark contrast. One is overly confident, arrogant and active. The other is doubtful, guilt-ridden, and indecisive. "I — I probably shouldn't be with you in China town.If — If someone from the Company saw me with you, I…" Peter shakes his head again, leaning with his arms on the railings. "I'll let you know what I decide."

Helena starts to say something, bites it back. In fact, it's a long time before she can manage to say anything at all, and finally comes up with, "I'll be waiting to hear from you." Then, quietly, "I got the package to Hana." With that, she seems prepared to leave with Brian.

Opening up, Brian allows Helena to go first. Then follows her closely, though he gives one last glance back at Peter whilst leaving. Haitian, Hiro.. It doesn't matter. Only one thing matters. He said he didn't want the other Peter back.. That means he wants him dead..His grey eyes twinkle with something like hope.

Maybe Peter heard her, maybe he didn't. But the wind that picks up on the rooftop for a brief moment isn't from any particular gust, but rather from air rishing to fill a void where Peter once was. He's just gone, vanished in the blink of an eye to a place unknown. With everything already troubling him, his division between where he wants to be and where he is only grows larger and larger.

In time, that division may rip him in half more than he already is.


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November 29th: Where The Bear Shits

Previously in this storyline…
Unofficial Business


Next in this storyline…
All Those Dark Things

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November 29th: Blame Game
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