[Week 16, Day 5 | video]

[future_games]

[At first, all the video feed captures is darkness and the sound of heavy, shaky breathing. It's the type of breathing that happens when a very broken person on the verge of a breakdown and tries to calm their nerves on their own

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[VIDEO] PETER PETRELLI. HE'S A HERO.

[future_games]

[Isaac lapses back into silence for a moment, contemplating Peter's words. Admittedly, if he were in the other man's shoes, he wouldn't want to know either. But Isaac and Peter are entirely different entities. The painter has been through a lot, but so much of his suffering stems from his own decisions. He's mentally weaker and lacks confidence. Peter, on the other hand, has been through so more. He hasn't ask for an ounce of it, but he can handle it. He has handled it.

Or perhaps it's just that Isaac just doesn't want to be alone in his suffering. He doesn't want to be the only one to remember. He wants Peter to remember something about the explosion and the woman that acted as the glue that held Isaac's life together and lead Peter to the paintings.

It's a selfish desire, but he also knows that Peter is meant for too much to just go on living without remembering everything he's already been through. He's entwined in a certain destiny. He's come too far to just stop.

He shakes his head after a moment, his eyebrows knitted together in concern.]

If I were you, I wouldn't want to know either. [He pauses to nibble at a thumbnail, feeling a bit awkward now. He can't force Peter into anything, but it's so strange. He came into the conversation feeling nothing but the same bitterness he died with, and now he wants what's best for Peter. He isn't even certain how it happened, but he continues, his voice soft and understanding.] But you can't run from it forever. Tell me what you saw?

[VIDEO] LOLOLOL

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[ Tell me what you saw, he says, and Peter glimpses, sees these fragments he holds but can't quite understand. Shining and glimmering with all the secrets of a past drenched in too much blood. He remembers the red, all over his shoes and splattered across the floor of his mind, across canvases and dripping off the ends of paintbrushes. Across the chest of a beautiful woman with bright green eyes and brown skin. He sees again red, the color of rain performing staccato against an umbrella; or maybe it was the umbrella that was red and the rain was simply just that: rain, clear and cold and running through the busy streets of a New York not yet destroyed, a New York still alive and flourishing and Peter stands in the middle of it all, the rain and the red and clear green eyes. ]

Green eyes.

[ It's the first thing that comes popping out of his mouth, as he looks at Isaac, thinks that there must be a connection, why he suddenly sees this woman now. ]

There's this... this African American woman that I keep seeing, and she has these... these beautiful green eyes. Real piercing-like, you know. And there's... there's all these images that don't make sense... I guess you said you painted so maybe that's what I'm seeing. But these paintings... [ Peter frowns as he looks down at Isaac through the Hitomi, meeting his eyes. Trying to desperately make some sense of this all. ] They're really violent. Like, there's blood all over them. I mean, paint. But it's red.

[ Peter's not sure if it's red paint. A part of him actually feels like it's not paint. ]

And I saw you... lying on the floor. And you had these... [ He gestures at the crook of his arm here. ] You were really messed up, man. And there was this huge painting... of like, an explosion or something. Except I saw it. The explosion, I mean. It was like I was actually there... but... that's not possible...

[ Because the New York Peter so vividly remembers is not a New York of ash and dust. ]

[VIDEO] Peter needs to find Captain Planet and acquire his ability. :v

[future_games]

Simone.

[The name drops painfully from his mouth almost as soon as Peter describes her.]

Her name was Simone.

[For a moment, he wonders if he should have held his tongue, given Peter the chance to continue putting the pieces together on his own, but he waves the thought away. No aspect or part of her deserves to be forgotten. He knows how he felt about Simone to the very end. He loved her and clung to her like she was the only thing that was keeping whole. But Peter must have loved her too, though, because he never once let her go.

Speaking about Simone is painful, but it's something he wants. He's almost a little disappointed when the conversation turns to the bomb, but he realizes that this is a necessary subject to touch on as well.]

I paint the future. [His gaze drops, the fingers on his free hand finding their way a covered forearm. The tracks that lie beneath his shirtsleeves spark shame into him again, as they so often do.] Or I did. I painted all sorts of things. Things that just don't happen. I painted that explosion more times than I can count. And the cheerleader. And you. Everything was tied together somehow, but I never figured it out.

[He pauses for a shuddering breath. He really isn't used to talking so much, let alone about this.] New York destroyed. That's what the bomb was going to do. It was going to level New York City and hundreds of people along with it. It...it is possible.

[VIDEO] captain peter petrelli!

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[ Peter listens. Watches Isaac shape the sounds and syllables that form words which should connect to something, should hook and reel in all that Peter had been waiting for: the past, adrift in an ocean, lost perhaps, when he had been put into that dark prison that shipped over it. Maybe it had drowned, floated down to a bottom too dark and too cold, too deep for retrieval. No amount of fishing could ever hope to reach it, no amount of wishing will either, it seems. He hadn't even realized until it sinks within him, a slow descent, that a kind of hope had risen at the thought that maybe, just maybe, he might be able to access the truth about himself. And even if it was terrifying, even if he wasn't ready, still wanted to run from it -- or at least a part of him -- he had hoped, had wanted, to be able to fill in the parts of him, which really was all of him, that was put far beyond him. Out there, somewhere.

Out there.

Where there was a woman with green eyes named Simone, a name he rolls through his mind but comes up with nothing but those eyes and a smile, rain and an umbrella. Green eyes don't tell him anything about himself, other than that he once knew a beautiful woman who -- and then his mind dips a little, or maybe it's just his heart -- once was. Was. Blood on her chest and blood on the paintings and a kind of pain in Isaac's eyes that punches Peter right in the chest when he sees it. Isaac must have cared for this women, once, to carry such an expression, to hold a look like that in his eyes. Peter feels like he should linger, but a far larger concern looms: the destruction of New York City, by fire and not by disease.

He is starting to wonder just how many times, in his life, does New York fall apart, does everyone die, and if he's responsible for stopping it, like some kind of guardian of a city he can't even remember living in. What he does remember is terrifying and strange and cold, New York up in fire, New York up in smoke. New York, empty and desolate, a great ghost town of urban decay and the ringing echoes of footsteps in a city of ghosts, where the air is sick and the world is too, and Peter. Peter is overwhelmed when he tries to figure out how the pieces fit: if New York exploded before it was sick, or if the sickness came first. If somehow, he stops this future of New York, only to have it destroyed anyway.

He sees.

Remembers that flash, the bright, blinding destructive force like the sun exploding, except what he sees isn't the distance of New York in paint, New York in bright colors on Isaac's floor, but a sun coming out of his own body and New York crumbling before him.

Peter doesn't even realize he's starting to hyperventilate a little until the dizziness hits him and he shakes his head, tries to calm the fuck down. ]

What... [ Almost breathless. ] What year are you from?

[VIDEO] Gonna take pollution down to zero! :D

[future_games]

[ Isaac watches Peter's reactions in the screen, brow furrowed in concern. He truthfully doesn't want to load too much onto him at one time, because he's experienced something similar. The images he painted came at him so quickly, none of them pleasant, and didn't seem to stop until he was dead on the floor of his loft. But Peter has to know.

He waits for Peter's breathing to even out again, telling himself to keep his mouth shut about anything else for a little while.. But Peter's question? Isaac has to think about it. It shouldn't take him so long to answer something so simple, but it's difficult for him, sometimes, to remember such common knowledge. Heroin is one hell of a drug, but it's not only that. There had been so much hanging in the balance. Simple things, like dates and times didn't seem important. All that mattered was the city and doing anything he possibly could to save it. But he recalls, after a few beats.]

2006. [He pauses briefly again, wondering just how long he's supposedly been "dead".] What about you?

[VIDEO] SAVE THE TREES

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2006.

[ Peter repeats numbly, parrots almost. ]

You're from 2006.

[ A year before Ireland, two years before New York, before he was pushed into that shipping container and onto the sea. What happened in all the months between the two, in all that lost time could have been anything at all. But what Peter does know is that New York doesn't explode, couldn't have, if two years later, it stands empty and still. The buildings were the only thing that seemed to live, standing silently against a slate-grey sky. But they were intact, not destroyed, not skeletons of ash. ]

Look, I don't know what happened, but I was in Montreal in 2007, and then the next thing I knew, I was in New York in 2008. Now, the New York I saw? It definitely wasn't destroyed so... that bomb must have been stopped. But something worse happened...

[ And then Peter corrects himself. ]

-- I mean, it's going to happen.

[VIDEO] SAVE THE WORLD.

[future_games]

[A year? How is that possible when it feels like he was in his loft only moments ago? He shifts uncomfortably. His desire for Peter to remember is increasing second by second, but now he's urging himself to hold things back; to spare him some shock. He decidedly bites back the knowledge that Peter himself was supposed to be the bomb.

The painter doesn't know much, but so many things contrast in his mind. Yes, Peter is here and alive in one piece, but the future is inevitable. It's an unstoppable force that charges through its path, not caring who or what it crushes. The painted prophecies of New York in ruin, of Simone's rooftop in flames and the enormous mushroom cloud erupting from the center of the city. He painted it so often. It just doesn't make sense that the bomb didn't happen on any scale. But again, for Peter's sake, he swallows it back.

Still, he can't stand the thought of anything happening to the city. His city. His expression falters even further with Peter's implications of more chaos..]

You saw something. [It's not a question, but an assumption. He keeps his silent vow not to load too much onto Peter at one time, but he can't help pressing further on this subject. New York was his home once upon a time, and he feels he has the right to know what's going on. He's almost pleading now.] Please--what's going to happen?

[VIDEO]

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[ Peter blinks, frowns slightly, shaking his head, as though to say no, no I don't want to tell you what it was I saw. I don't want to remember, but my mind won't stop. The images keep flashing through his mind, like a broken record of a video, of a city filled with ghosts and the piled-up bodies of the dead in warehouses; the cold of the sanitation and the scent of decay and antiseptic, though no amount of antiseptic could ever bleach the air. And there, in the middle of it all, in the middle of the endless stretch of dead buildings, gravestones of civilization, and the screaming of cold water and the clamor of chain-link fences, is Caitlin.

Who is still there, trapped like a butterfly in a glass jar. ]

I saw...

[ The future.

A world where man had become endangered, where a single virus could wipe out ninety-three percent of the world. Peter's brother (I have a brother?) was even lost in that storm; a brother maybe Peter will never know because he isn't where he should be, and he doesn't know how to get to where he needs to be to find the parts of him that need finding so that he can stop this.

His eyes turn to Isaac in the Hitomi, meeting his gaze straight-on. ]

When I got to New York, it was empty. Everyone was dead. Ninety-three percent of the world died because of this virus. This woman that I met... she told me I had to stop it.

[ That last sentence is said with a touch of disbelief. Because really, how can Peter save the world, when he doesn't even know who he is? ]

[VIDEO]

[future_games]

[ Part of him wishes he hadn't asked. That description hits him head on, hard, leaving him even more breathless than before. Not knowing would have been torture, but the knowledge of something so dangerous trying to creep its way toward New York for the second time is absolutely shattering. It's almost as though all of those paintings, all of those pieces to the puzzle that was the bomb, didn't even matter. If these things were going to keep happening, what was the point in trying to stop them? Something would slip through the cracks eventually.

But he's too still too set on heroism. Again, he quickly shifts through the badly cataloged memories of paintings, searching for any clues he may be able to offer to help stop this. Something...a painting he had set aside because it seemed so insignificant in the midst of the explosion. A horror-stricken, dark-haired man - was it Peter? - gazing through a window with a biohazard symbol in the corner. It was an interesting memory to call forth, likely tying in to Peter's story, but it didn't help.]

You have to... [He says, almost pleads, in a near whisper.] Peter, you've done it before. You're here, you're alive. New York is still there. The bomb was obviously stopped. You have to do something. [For a moment, he forgets that he's supposed to be dead. He forgets that Simone is dead and that Peter's memories are far and few. He's urgent, and he wants whatever this thing is stopped. Quickly.] Did you paint it? Have you tried painting it?

[VIDEO]

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[ It didn't even occur to Peter to try to do just that. He's still learning these things about himself, what it is that comes out of his hands and his body, the way it sometimes just acts on its own; it remembers even if his mind does not. Picking up a paintbrush at Caitlin's flat on that rainy night, compelled, as though possessed by something, an image, Montreal. Wet cobblestone and street lamps casting long shadows upon himself and Caitlin. He hadn't even realized what he had done until after it was over -- his hands, covered in paint, and a painting he had never seen before sitting where the canvas had been.

He didn't even know he could paint; didn't remember even painting it. ]

I did something like that before. In Ireland. I painted this... this painting. Of me and my girlfriend, in Montreal. We found the place in the painting and we went there, and then something happened and that's how we ended up in the future. In New York.

[ He's not sure why he's explaining this now, only hoping that maybe Isaac might have the answers to the questions, can fill in all the gaps. ]

[VIDEO]

[future_games]

[ At Peter's mention of a girlfriend, something shifts visibly in Isaac's expression. Disdain. He can't help it. There's just something irksome about the fact that Peter, with or without his memories, found reason to move on from Simone and attempt to find some kind of happiness so quickly. Isaac can't find that reason, no matter how hard he looks. As far as he's concerned, he's done too much wrong to deserve even an ounce of happiness.

He can't hold back his bitterness anymore, and he can't stop himself when he abruptly responds in a much lower, hostile tone.]

Lucky you. You paint Montreal and I paint my own death.

[ The realization of what he just said barely even sinks in before he continues again, in the same brisk tone. ]

Did you time-travel yourself, or did someone do it for you?

[VIDEO]

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[ It never even occurred to Peter that maybe someone else could have been involved, to blame, for of all of this. So caught up in the whirlwind of a storm he had somehow been tossed into, like a butterfly in a hurricane, Peter had been too overwhelmed by all the fucked up events of his life since they found him, that he hadn't paused to think that maybe other people could have done what he could do; and though he knew there were others like him in this world, he hadn't considered the possibility that back home, where Caitlin was waiting, there might be others too. But of course there would be others -- he couldn't possibly be the only one with powers like these.

So distracted by the question and what it implies, Peter shelves what he saw earlier in Isaac's gaze and what he heard in his tone. That bitterness, sharp-edged and hot. Like the blade of a knife slid through a flame. Something flashed dark and dangerous and angry for a moment in Isaac's eyes, too, and Peter's not sure he understands why or what it was, but he knows the feeling. There will be time later to ask about that look, but right now, Peter shakes his head. ]

I don't know. One minute me and Caitlin were in her flat, and the next we were in New York. I don't know how it happened, only that it did.

[ Time stopped and slid between his fingers, wet threads too slippery to catch. He fell between them and was caught somewhere, tangled, perhaps. Caitlin was somewhere in all of that mess, and Peter hasn't figured out how to undo it. ]

I've been trying, you know. To do it again. But I can't get it to work. I don't even know how I did it.

[VIDEO]

[future_games]

[ Isaac knows Peter caught the sharp change in the tone of his voice, and that's how he wants it. He doesn't need to explain himself when there's already so much he's trying not to spill too soon, but it's hard for Isaac to swallow the bitterness back down. It's that same mix of jealousy and admiration as always, but with more jealousy than admiration this time. It absolutely kills him--Peter, even missing most of what makes him Peter, still has a better handle on Isaac's ability than Isaac. It's ironic and cruel, as far as Isaac sees it, and it only makes him further believe that he's been miscast as a prophet.

He almost considers just turning the Hitomi off without another word. Cutting himself off would certainly take care of one of his problems, but he's well aware that a decision like that isn't going to calm his selfish desire not to suffer alone. Peter needs to continue to remember, so Isaac needs to continue to speak to him. For a little while longer, at least.]

If you painted the future without realizing it, you probably time traveled without realizing it. [He hesitates, wondering it's somehow dangerous to continue adding details to help spark Peter's memory. But it shouldn't matter. All Isaac has is a name.] I think you got that from Hiro Nakamura.

[VIDEO]

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[ That name triggers something inside of Peter, makes him feel as though he is so close to touching upon something, to closing his hands around what it is he's been searching for this entire time. Hiro Nakamura, a name as foreign as the eyes that he remembers on a train stopped in time with the mantra playing through the still silence of it all (save the cheerleader, save the world), and Peter confused and as lost as he is now. A connection, perhaps, the name to that face Peter had been wondering about (though there's so much to consider, so much newness exploding within him that he can't make any sense of just yet). Somewhere in the distance, bells are ringing in time to a tempo Peter hears but doesn't know how to dance to just yet. The beat is a study drum, the pulse of his heart hammering in his chest. Echoing with each toll, badump badump.

Save the cheerleader, save the world. ]

Hiro Nakamura... why does that name sound familiar?

[ His face open and confused, perplexed as he looks down into the Hitomi, hoping Isaac can give him the answers he needs, make sense of the rhythm he grasps at but escapes his feet. He is not standing on any kind of ground, but in space, and gravity is still too far away to pull him down to earth. ]

[VIDEO]

[future_games]

[ Isaac gives the face in the Hitomi and inquisitive stare, silent for a moment. It's impressive how quickly something as small as a name can trigger Peter's memory, so he knows he has to be careful.

Isaac realizes, it's not so much that Peter's memories are gone. It's more like they're buried somewhere very deep, dormant until someone or something breathes life into them. ]

Why do any of these things sound familiar? You may not remember it, but you've been through it all before.

[ He replies quietly, but that bite in his voice still rings through. He knows Peter can't help but question, but the painter is growing tired and fearful that he's going to reveal too much. He wishes he could tell Peter everything he knows all in one shot, but it's not that simple. Nothing ever is.

[VIDEO]

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[ You've been through it before, he says like Peter's supposed to know this, like he should remember and he should. It's a little terrifying, absolutely frustrating, that this man who might as well have been a stranger less than half an hour ago knows more about Peter than Peter knows about himself. Knows who he is, what he's done, and what these things mean, how to piece them all together. The images spill like drops of paint on the bristles of a brush that Peter holds in his hand but doesn't know what to do with, other than to wrap his hands around the handle and hope that holding on is enough. ]

Can you tell me who I am?

[ It's a loaded question, and maybe not fair to Isaac, but Peter needs to know, needs to understand. ]