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Who: Peter Petrelli, Claire Bennet, D'Artagnan, and OPEN.
Where: The entrance hall.
When: Evening of the 21st.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Peter arrives in Wonderland, except... SHOCKER. He's DOA. Anyone care to lend a hand? Or maybe people just want to gawk. Either way. (Alternatively, people can show up later, after his little problem has been taken care of. Just specify in the subject line)
The Story:

It really was jarring to be alive and relatively whole one second, and then the next, to be… nothing. Peter had about half a second to think before the information overload began. What he saw was just a bunch of flashes of things, of Sylar and Mohinder, glass on the floor, and then there was a lurch, and he realized was falling. The images disappeared, and then there was nothing at all.

He was dead, and that was it. Maybe it was a lucky shot, but that piece of glass in his head was enough to keep him down. No regeneration, no healing, no anything.

The scene looked oddly innocuous, considering that it seemed as though someone had just died there. There was blood on Peter's head and on his clothes, but it was oddly contained. There was nothing on the walls or the floor, and actually, there was nothing anywhere. There were the normal things, like carpeting and wood flooring underneath, but nothing to suggest that someone had just been murdered.

Nothing, that is, except for the glaringly obvious problem of Peter's dead body that was lying on the floor.

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D'Artagnan rarely found himself in the entrance hall these days. Except when he felt like taking the long way out to the stables, which is why he found himself there today. And honestly, he isn't exactly paying attention to where he's going...or paying attention to his surroundings-- something he needs to work on, actually, but that's another story-- so that's probably why he trips over Peter's leg.

Not that he knows it's Peter's body he turns around and sees, because he doesn't know Peter, but still. It's pretty shocking to trip over a dead body. And it's something that hasn't happened to him yet, so it has that going for it. The element of surprise, and all that. Which is why D'Artagnan gasps and stumbles back for a moment before rushing forward to check for signs of breathing. It's no use though, the closer D'Artagnan gets, the better he can see that this man's face is blue and lifeless.

"Hello?" He tries it anyway. "Excuse me, can you hear me???" He kneels, putting his ear to the man's chest to listen for any kind of sound and stands again when he hears nothing. He runs down the hall and toward the stairs, calling for help.

Claire's on her way outside to brood in the fresh air when she spots D'Artagnan's familiar (and perfect) head of hair. She's smiling as she hurries down the main staircase, but takes pause about halfway down as she realizes he's not alone and he's calling for help.

"What's going on?" She runs the rest of the way down, concern evident in her tone. It doesn't take much for Claire to figure things out on her own, though, given the body right there on the ground and all. So she glances up at D'Art with a worried grimace, and hurries to crouch down at the man's side. It all felt too familiar to how things had been a few years ago for her, during her first stay with the Petrellis in New York. And when she actually took in the facial features of the dead man, it all quickly comes crashing back to her in vivid color.

"Peter?" His name comes out a near sob, just because it's never great seeing her uncle in this position. That, and she's selfishly happy he's here with her. So through her onslaught of emotion, she knows that everything is going to be just fine. So she smiles, and scoots upward so she can lovingly cradle Peter's head in her lap and feel around for something wedged in the off switch in the back of his head.

"He'll be okay," she promises D'Artagnan, finding the glass and pulling it out. It's carelessly tossed to the side and her hands work through Peter's hair, meant to be a reassuring gesture for herself rather than for him. But she supposes to anyone watching, it looks like someone comforting the person they love the most after a horrible accident.

Oh, that is Claire, isn't it! He hasn't seen her for awhile, and hm, she looks a bit older. Perhaps she left and came back, and oh, that makes him feel like a bad friend. He didn't even notice her absence. He was too busy being sick, it seemed. Still. Hardly an excuse.

"He's--" D'Artagnan starts to say, but Claire's always been quick, which is one thing he appreciates about her. He follows her to the body, and is only mildly surprised when she pulls his head into her lap. It's obvious she knows him, and has....some...deep emotions toward him. Right. Any thought of that, however, leaves his mind as Claire pulls the shard of glass from Peter. D'Artagnan winces. Ouch.

"Is he-- like you, then? He can heal?"

While all of this is going on, Peter's just been lying where he fell, blissfully (well, not really... how blissful can you be when you're dead?) unaware of anything. D'Artagnan's attempts to call for help, and Claire's subsequent arrival, fell on deaf ears and glazed over eyes.

But when Claire removes the glass from his head, the color returns to his eyes, and he inhales a breath, maybe just a hair too quickly for his lungs to keep up. He coughs, and it takes a few moments for his breaths to regulate and return to a more normal rate. Sitting up, he realizes just who's crouching beside him, and he manages to say her name.

"Claire?"

If that's not an answer to your question, D'Art, then there'll probably never be a better one. Or something. Peter's just going to work his way into a sitting position, while looking very confused. "What's going on?"

She motions with a finger to her lip for D'Art to be quiet and watch and wait, and sure enough, Peter comes gasping back to life. She grins, letting him adjust to breathing again, and letting the scenery sink in. "You're in a place called Wonderland, Peter."

It worries her that he's arrived with the glass in his head, and now that she's looking at him, he's coming across not as hard and worn as the Peter from her time. He's younger, softer...still gentle and the dreamer that she met at homecoming. He's still her hero at this point, not that he isn't in his future, he's just a different kind now that she doesn't need him to save her. But he's still Peter, one of the only people left in the world she can trust no matter what. So no matter what time differences are between them right now, she doesn't hesitate in moving forward to hug him.

"No one is sure how to get back home, but everything's going to be okay. I promise."

D'Artagnan's seen Claire regenerate, once. She didn't die, but he stabbed her on accident-- there were stairs, the whole thing was messy-- but she hadn't been hurt. And watching someone come back from the dead was entirely different than watching someone's stomach heal. It's...terrifying, really, but D'Artagnan doesn't say anything as Peter wakes up and seems confused.

He moves back as Claire moves forward to hug Peter, giving them room. He feels a bit like a third wheel, and doesn't want to impede on their reunion. Besides, he's still sort of freaked out.

Oh, come on, D'Art, there are no third wheels here. Sure, he's pretty confused; in fact, this might be the most confused that he's ever been, but it helps that Claire and D'Artagnan are there.

He doesn't want to think how different things would be if he'd woken up alone. Actually, he wouldn't have woken up at all, in that instance, so he owes both of them something.

For the time being, he's just going to let Claire hug him, a gesture that even he can't help but appreciate, given the circumstances. But when they finally separate, he falls silent, trying to digest what she's just said.

"You're not kidding, are you? This really is Wonderland?" It doesn't look all that wonderful to him. "But yeah, I'm sure everything's going to be okay. You two saved my life."

He glances back and forth, looking at Claire, and then at D'Artagnan. It might seem corny, but he knows it's true, and more importantly, he believes it.

"I'm really not joking around here, Peter. It may not really be Wonderland, but someone pretty powerful is trying to make us think it is." She gives him a long stare at that, wondering if he'll pick up on the it might be Sylar levels of crazy tone in her voice.

She does look over at D'Artagnan though, and give him a little nudge. "Hear that, you saved him." With a glance back at Peter, she finds herself grinning in what feels like the first time in months. She can't believe how good it feels to have someone from home here with her. Having no idea how selfish that really is, she just eases on into introductions.

"Peter, this is my friend D'Artagnan. And this is Peter. He's my uncle." She doesn't exactly remember every little detail of that day, she can't recall if Peter already knew this when Sylar had hurt him, or if he learned after. Well, now's a good of time as any, she figures!

It's not that he thinks she's joking; it's just that this whole situation is pretty unbelievable, even for him. People don't usually die and wake up somewhere entirely different. Then again, people don't usually regenerate either, unless they have abilities like he and Claire do. "You think we're just imagining this?" He fixes her with a stare, as if that's going to help clear this up. But the implications of what she said haven't escaped him. Sylar very well could be behind this, even if there's no outstanding clues pointing to him.

But all things considered, it's nice to see Claire, and nice to know that she's safe. He has a lot of questions for her, but they kind of fly out of his head when he hears how she introduces him. "Wait, I'm your uncle?" That would mean she's- "That's impossible."

He hates using that word, since the confines of what's impossible and not have expanded a lot recently.

Uncle. D'Artagnan's still a bit stuck on that part, especially since Claire was staring at him in a way...well, in a way that he wouldn't look at his Uncle. If he had one. Ahem, right. That's fine though, he can roll with it. It's not as if potentially incestuous relationships are that much of a shock. He's mostly just surprised to find they've lasted throughout the centuries.

"You're not imagining it," he says, finally coming back to the conversation. "This is all quite real. Unfortunately."

"Yeah. Nathan's my biological father," she mumbles that out, ignoring the way her heart aches when she speaks of Nathan in the present tense. She has to, though, so Peter doesn't ever learn what happens to his brother. It's hard enough to find out she's his niece because Nathan can't keep it in his pants when it comes to pretty blondes. She can't also let him know that their biggest enemy kills the one common thread they both cling to. It'd be too painful for him, too much of a shock.

"So I guess you're a little more than just my hero."

She turns a fond smile to him then, before scooting back to sit a little more at D'Artagnan's side. Her legs curl in close to her chest and she rests her chin atop her knees. Her mind's busy trying to go over all the implications of what his being from such an early point in their timeline means. There's so much she wants to tell him, but she has to be careful.

It was the scent of blood that grabbed Angel's attention. Even after years of self-conditioning, of living entirely off of animals aside from the occasional slip, that scent always caught him and held his attention.

Someone was wounded. He could tell that much without seeing them. To what extent, he wouldn't know until he hit the scene, but as he drew closer he found himself hit with the unmistakable scent of death -- something he had encountered countless times during his two and a half centuries, something he'd often been the cause of. It was enough to make him move faster, turning the corner to see--

Shit. He knew Wonderland was often unkind to people, both on arrival and during their stay, but he was still new here. For all he'd seen back home, some things still caught him by surprise. The guy seemed to be upright, at least, and mostly whole. Definitely better than what Angel had expected.

"Hey. You alright?"

By the time that Angel finds him, Peter's still in the hallway where he first arrived, but he's very much alive. He's standing up and looking none the worse for wear, except for the blood that's sticking to his hair and decorating the side of his face.

The plan was for him to find somewhere to stay, somewhere a little less exposed than this hallway, but he found he needed a moment to collect himself before he moved on. It wasn't that he was that rattled, but the manner of his arrival to Wonderland wasn't something to just blow off.

He looked up at the man who had addressed him, and he nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine." Or at least, he would be, once he'd had a little time to wrap his mind around all of this.

He looked fine -- by all means, his appearance supported his claim completely, aside from the dried blood, but Angel couldn't help thinking there was something off. His senses had long been attuned to the supernatural in such a way that anything that wasn't quite right or was extraordinary in some way tended to set him on edge, but aside from the smell of death, he couldn't put his finger on it. The guy wasn't like him, at least -- not undead. That much he was sure of.

Lucky him, really. The whole creature-of-the-night gig isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"What happened here?" Might as well be direct about it. Whatever happened wasn't obvious, but the energy in the room made it clear that something had.

It just seemed to him that becoming a basket case because one minute, someone was trying to murder him, and the next, he was in a completely unfamiliar place was not something anyone needed to deal with. But to someone not in the loop about the situation back home and to someone presumably unfamiliar with the existence of people with enhanced abilities, he owed Angel an explanation.

"As far as I can tell, I just showed up here, but not like most people do." He shrugged his shoulders, not trying to downplay what happened, but to buy himself a moment or two to figure out how best to word his explanation. "Until just a little while ago, when some friends showed up, I was dead." Murdered was a more accurate description, but why get someone up in arms unnecessarily?

Angel narrowed his eyes for a moment, considering that. Had it never happened before? He knew that some people's first impression of this place was that it was some sort of afterlife, like Cordelia -- but that had been different. People had died in their home worlds and then come here, but this was the first he'd heard of someone being dead on arrival.

"Do you know how?" he asked, curious despite the careful, measured tone of voice he used. "Did it happen before you got here, or did something happen--" He paused as he tried to figure out how to word it. "In transit?"

The more he could piece together about how Wonderland worked and what it's game was, the better.

"... looks like you bounced back."

He nodded. "Yeah, I know how." He found that he didn't like to talk about it, and even if it wasn't actually rational, he found himself worrying that Sylar was here and hiding himself somehow. But the question was, would Sylar wait before acting? Claire had seemed concerned about that, but as far as he could tell, there was no proof that the man was here.

"There was a man named Sylar who was trying to kill me." Kill him and take his powers. That was the important part. "It happened before I got here. I'd probably still be dead, if not for-" He broke off there, eyeing Angel warily.

"I guess I got lucky." He could only thank Claire for saving him. Without her help, things would have been a lot different.

Angel could respect not wanting to talk about it, or at least not wanting to go into the gory details. He'd been in more than his share of difficult situations. Once you reached a certain age, they just starting piling up. He was coming up on three centuries. He'd seen a lot -- could understand wariness.

Wariness was smart. He wouldn't begrudge Peter that.

"You got lucky. A few others have stumbled in here thinking it was the afterlife, but they're the minority. I don't think many people make it here past their expiration date."

He guessed that not many people had rapid cellular regeneration on their list of things they could do. Still, he had to question the chain of events that led to him showing up in the way that he had. But then again, that question was rapidly falling to the bottom of the list, because the more that he talked to people, and the more exploration that he did, the more questions he found he had.

"I'm beginning to think that whoever it is that runs things here isn't exactly looking out for our best interests." Not that he really expected anything different.

"That'd be a good guess."

Angel still wasn't sure he was buying the whole 'Queen of Hearts' angle, though all evidence seemed to support the claim that this was, in fact, Wonderland. For the most part, he'd accepted it, though he still wasn't entirely convinced that Wonderland itself wasn't some kind of hell dimension. He'd been to his fair share. They were varied enough that it was possible, and it was something familiar enough for him to be able to quantify, even if it wasn't right on the nose.

"I'm Angel. You got a name?"

If there was any evidence to suggest that this place was being run by a benevolent dictator, or even just a benevolent leader, Peter was definitely not convinced. As far as Wonderland being a hell dimension, Peter couldn't comment on that; however, this being some kind of weird future was a distant, albeit far-fetched idea. He hadn't given much thought to that, though, other than to wonder briefly at Claire's appearance. She looked older than he remembered her being.

He only raised an eyebrow at Angel's name. If he had to guess, he'd figure that any comments about his name being different weren't all that original, so he just left that part out. "Yeah, I do, sorry." He'd forgotten about that, in the course of their conversation. "I'm Peter. Have you been around long?"

"Little less than a month, give or take. Long enough to learn the ropes." As much as he could, anyway. It was something that was easier said than done, given the way Wonderland liked to change itself up and surprise them.

"The way I hear it, there are people who have been stuck here for years." Not that that's going to discourage him from looking for a way out. In fact, more difficult odds only ever make him that much more determined. "There's even, ah-- a brochure, if you can believe it."

He smiled grimly. Maybe a little unorthodox, but it had all of the necessary info for newcomers, at least.

"Something tells me it doesn't take long for people to learn the ropes." It's a cliched saying, but this whole place is beginning to seem like one where you sink or swim. And Peter plans on swimming.

"I can't imagine being here for that long. It's only been a few weeks and I already feel like I've had enough." Not that he has any say about getting out of here, but clearly this place gets old really fast. With a raised eyebrow, he smirks a little. "Someone actually wrote up a brochure about this?"

It's not the most unbelievable thing, but it just seems like an interesting touch. Unexpected, too.

"You learn them or get eaten alive - so to speak."

Not literally, of course. Maybe it hadn't been the best figure of speech, considering who and what he was.

"It's a little crudely written, but useful. Easy to tell the person who wrote it isn't a big fan of the place. Can't imagine many are." There were perks, of course. There were things that were available here in Wonderland that wouldn't have been otherwise, things that were possible whereas back home, he'd lost the opportunity.

He was pretty decidedly against this place as a whole, but there were parts he couldn't help but appreciate, or even be grateful for.

"The rules are different here. You'll catch on to those quickly, too."

Well, to be fair, Peter didn't know what Angel was, so any hidden meanings in what he just said didn't really register.

"I don't plan on getting eaten alive, so learning the ropes it is," Peter replied with a grim smile. "Any information is better than none, though I'm getting the sense that people around here know enough about the routine and what to expect that they don't really need to show people the pamphlet." He got a pretty good rundown just from talking to several different people.

It almost seemed to him like they'd memorized the facts, probably because they've said them enough times by now.

"If you don't, then this place just chews you up and spits you back out." Talk about a friendly place to be.

"More or less. The house likes to play tricks on people."

That was putting it mildly. He'd only been in Wonderland a week before he saw the mansion shift for the first time, stripping him of everything that gave him an edge when it came to survival but leaving him crippled with the weak points of being a vampire. That had been fun.

"I'm told they're not always deadly, but everything I've seen so far has been pretty harsh. Hoping I just turned up during a bad streak. You've got the right idea, though. I think you'll do alright."

"Somehow, I doubt those tricks are the kind that get people laughing."

No, he was thinking that the kind of tricks that the mansion might play are the kind that get people dead. But that's a bit of a morbid thought so he doesn't give voice to it.

Funnily enough, Angel's words about them not always being deadly don't do much to reassure him. "I don't plan on letting this place run me over if I can avoid it." He just hoped that was something he could live up to. It wasn't going to be easy, if everything that he'd heard was true. "Thanks for the heads-up, by the way."

For what it was worth, Angel wasn't all that reassured, either.

The smell of death in the air was still hard to ignore, but he'd got as much of an explanation on that as was probably available. It was curious, however -- this wasn't the first instance of someone turning up dead that he'd heard of, but none of them were able to be fully explained, each of them a little different. Something worth keeping an eye on, however subtly.

"You seem to have found your feet well enough. I shouldn't keep you- but you might want to head over to the clinic, just in case? Let one of the resident docs take a look at you, since you turned up in rough shape."

He might have been alright now, but it was better safe than sorry, wasn't it?

Peter nodded slowly, knowing that he had no intention of setting foot inside the clinic, at least not yet. Somehow, the idea of going there and relaying to whoever happened to be around the way in which he'd arrived and how he'd recovered shortly after seemed really ridiculous. Maybe nothing would happen if he did, but maybe the doctors would want to poke and prod at him like some kind of human guinea pig.

No one in their right mind would want to go through that. Peter couldn't help but feel a little skittish because of that thought. But he didn't tell Angel that; instead, he just said, "You're probably right. I'll head down there now."

He wouldn't actually be doing that, at least not right away. But what the guy didn't know wouldn't hurt him. "See you around."

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Sometime after the others find him, if that works?

It works perfectly!

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I apologize, I'm just now finding a bunch of tags from this day that I never got notifs for. :(

It's all good~

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