Day 53: Intercom, Evening
The commotion just after the intercom's jingle displayed the same kind of erratic energy that the Head Doctor had been exuding all day.
"Come on, get those papers out of the way - no, I don't...! Ah! Good evening, everyone, and I hope you all enjoyed the activities we had to ( Read more... )
"Come on, get those papers out of the way - no, I don't...! Ah! Good evening, everyone, and I hope you all enjoyed the activities we had to ( Read more... )
As for himself, plans had already been made to head up to the disciplinary therapy rooms to try and do what they could to help those patients who'd suffered from experimentation. Peter just hoped that Javert would be around for it, since otherwise he'd be stuck working with people he didn't know. The person named Ritsuka seemed nice enough, but did he really know what he was doing? Not that it was Peter's place to judge anyone, but...
It was going to have to work out one way or another. Peter needed to get his supplies in order, but he figured he'd start handling the syringes and blood after he'd eaten. It was an issue of being sanitary, after all, and he'd gone through enough lectures about a clean workspace to last him a lifetime.
Besides, he had to admit that the way Landel described their meals could leave him with his mouth watering at times. He sat down to the turkey dinner, wondering what time of year it was now and how close they were to Thanksgiving. It was definitely winter, so for all he knew, it may have already passed him by. That was an eerie thought.
Shaking his head, Peter started in on his food as he waited for Sam to show up.
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But that wasn't really working as an excuse anymore.
Never mind. He could put all that crap out of his mind for dinner at least, right? Take a break. Talking to Peter was always good for that. It was almost like when he'd been in college-working with a blank slate, where being a Winchester didn't mean being a Winchester.
There was a reason why he'd never been able to properly articulate to Dean why he'd left.
He stepped through the door and shut it quietly behind him. His roommate looked fine, so that probably meant nothing major had happened to him, though he did wonder if Peter had seen those shadows, too. If he had, it would suggest at least a somewhat common source of their abilities, but if not...if not. Huh. He wasn't sure what he'd make of that in that case. Then again, Dean's shadow had looked like it was about to do something, too, and Dean was entirely ability-free, so maybe it didn't have anything to do with their biological makeup at all. Maybe it was, you know, purely psychological.
That was no less unsettling, though.
Nudging out his chair, he sat down at his desk. "Hey."
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Then again, it was better than being brainwashed, wasn't it?
Either way, he nodded in greeting as he always did, already a few bites into his meal. As expected, it was delicious, though obviously not entirely up to par with what the chefs had managed during Thanksgivings back home. Still, that holiday had usually ended in such disaster that Peter didn't want to remember it anyway.
"How've you been?" he asked. It was true that it had only been a day since they'd seen each other, but a whole lot could happen in that amount of time. Peter remembered what Claire had told him, about how people had witnessed strange things the night before, and he couldn't help wondering if Sam had been affected. It wasn't the sort of thing that he was comfortable with outright asking, though, and so he simply waited for his roommate's reply.
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He'd sort of given up on the concept of ever having a good day; he couldn't really remember the last time that had happened, even before getting snatched up by this place, so any day where nothing completely disastrous and earth-shattering occurred was...doable. Though he was getting to suspect his definition of disastrous and earth-shattering was becoming kinda a bit looser than it'd once been.
He furrowed his brows at Peter in curiosity. "How about you? And...Claire?" he added, recalling the niece Peter had mentioned. She had to still be around, or Peter would be looking more upset. "Did you see the shadows last night?"
Did Peter even know about them? He'd probably heard. Word tended to travel, even with the board being less open than it used to, and he knew that the occurrence last night couldn't have been a rare one-in-a-hundred thing. The temporary mass deaths, the portals, it all seemed to strike at least a good chunk of the population. Which made sense. They were all involved here.
Sometimes it was still funny to realize that he was surrounded by people who mostly knew what was happening when the lights went out. He'd spent most of his twenty-something years with the expectation that there was a handful at best.
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He was a little surprised that Sam even remembered Claire's name, pausing in his bite of food to glance over at his roommate. Still, from what he could tell Sam was somewhat family-oriented, so maybe it made sense. Peter had had his share of family members come in and out of this place. At least his mother had been more or less spared, even if she was currently brainwashed.
... When had his life become this strange, again?
"I'm all right," he started. "Claire's managing as best as she can. She's... young. I worry about her, but she's tough." He knew the whole thing with Bella had taken a lot out of the girl, but hopefully she'd worked things out by now, or at least put it behind her. He considered telling Sam about her blood (he didn't think Sam would go blabbing to anyone, so it would probably be fine), but then the shadows were mentioned.
"We didn't," he replied with a shake of his head. "I heard about it earlier today, but I don't know the details. Something about seeing a reflection of yourself, right?" Having to talk to your own shadow shouldn't have been possible, but Landel's had a tendency to surpass all of his expectations. Peter sighed and went back to eating.
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He really needed to get away from everything Dean for awhile, but he knew that it wasn't an option when there were so many pressing matters about it. And he was aware that everyone else here was probably wrapped up in their own problems, too, so he wasn't alone in that, but he couldn't help feeling guilty about it regardless. He was supposed to care. He did care, he just. Sometimes it slipped. Which was no excuse, he knew.
Peter's question drew him back to the present. He nodded. "It was like it attached to your subconscious or something. Things you wouldn't actually ever say, you know?"
It did offer one possible explanation for why Peter, at least, had remained unaffected. If there was one thing he'd learned first from his roommate, it was that Peter had no trouble sharing most of what was on his mind. Maybe that applied to the others who hadn't had a talking shadow, either.
That did bring up the Trickster again, though. If Sam's shadow had dredged up the truth, then logically, what the Trickster's shadow had dredged up also had to be the truth. It was crazy to consider, except he couldn't deny its plausibility anymore. The pieces were all there and they slotted in place. He just didn't know if he wanted to buy the picture. The implications made his head hurt.
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Then again, that was Landel's in a nutshell, wasn't it?
Peter was sure that Claire was just as relieved as he was that they hadn't been affected, though he wasn't sure why that was. It was hard to imagine that they'd gotten some sort of lucky break, since this place wasn't known for those. Still, maybe for now he could just tell himself to not look the gift horse in the mouth.
"I can see how that would be awkward," he admitted with a sigh. "So... did things get really bad, or were you able to work it out?" He wasn't meaning to dig for more information, but he just wanted to make sure that Sam was doing all right. He seemed well enough, but Peter also knew that it was tough to tell with his roommate.
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His instinct was still to brush off the concern, but he contemplated for a few seconds instead. "I don't know," he admitted. "We talked, I guess. I mean, we were kinda...raised different, you know? Dean especially. I sorta never absorbed it as well, so we're not always-" in agreement on the definition of monster "-eye to eye."
But then he'd been dragged back in and here he was, apparently deeper in it than even his brother. If he'd ever thought, four years ago, that this would be him now, he would've thought it ridiculous.
He poked at his food and took a bite. He didn't exactly make it a habit of talking about his family, but they'd already broached the topic once, kinda, which made it feel a bit less awkward than it might've been with anyone else.
As long as they didn't go too far into the details of target practice at nine years old and stuff, of course.
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Besides, he could always refuse to answer something or artfully dodge it if he wanted to. If there was one thing Peter knew Sam was good at, it was that. Well, that and hitting demons with cars, apparently.
"Raised differently?" he echoed with a tilt of his head, still trying to get his dinner down even if he was pretty distracted by now. It seemed odd that Sam would say that, and yet Peter sort of knew what he meant. Nathan had certainly been treated by their parents in a different way than he'd been. It was something that he'd remained bitter about for a long time, but he'd slowly been letting it go as best he could.
The last thing he wanted to do at this point was fight with his brother, though Nathan wasn't even around to fight with, so...
"What do you mean?" Not being eye to eye was just part of being a sibling, Peter was pretty sure (twins were a different story), but he was still curious to hear more, provided Sam was willing to share.
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