DAY 55: Sun Room [2nd Shift]

[autophoenix]

[ from here ]Either she was the only unlucky person to experience a freezing shower, or she just hadn't built up the tolerance for it that the more seasoned patients had. Whichever it was, she was the first person into the sun room and while normally she wouldn't mind that, the soldiers were majorly creepy and she was kind of hoping for some kind

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[human_sponge]

Peter left the first shift feeling guilty that he hadn't been able to help with the cleaning effort and worried for the newcomer who he'd just met. Firo had definitely started to believe some of his words by the end of their conversation, which was encouraging. Peter felt that he'd explained as much as he could without completely losing the kid, and chances were that he'd have more explained to him as the day went by. He'd done his best.

Waiting around for someone to wheel him to the next shift was humbling, to say the least, and Peter was surprised when he realized that he was being taken to the Sun Room rather than the courtyard.

"Is there a reason you're not taking me outside?" he dared to ask.

"It's very cold out there. Someone as wounded as you should remain indoors," the soldier explained as she continued to push him toward the Sun Room.

It was surprising that military types would be so thoughtful, but Peter was appreciative of it. He had enough sensory problems that he was struggling with it; adding the biting cold to that wouldn't have been good.

While he was tempted to ask to be taken over to the bulletin board now that he was here, Peter knew better than to push his luck, and so he remained silent as the soldier found a place where his wheelchair could be left without it getting in the way. At that point she left him alone, and he was back to trying to find the most comfortable way to sit; there had to be some position that didn't leave him in pain.

[For Neku.]

[composers_proxy]

[from here]

His spikes were still drying so outside didn't seem a great option. To his surprise, the soldiers were okay with letting him into the Sun Room for a while and Neku took full advantage and checked the bulletin first, his stomach sinking a little when he saw that there was a post from the creepy guy with the ballpoint pen from last night. As if he didn't already feel like crap for trying to Erase half the patients, he had crazy murder-you-with-a-pen-in-the-face man looking to ask him a few more questions (in other words, rearrange his face until he talked, right?).

He took a few steps back, not wanting to be caught the next time Ballpoint decided to post a reply and instead glanced around the room. It took all of a few seconds before he realized there was another of his targets here already. One of the older guys that'd been with two younger kids, right? He could remember what happened, but unfortunately he hadn't much control at the time. And even better, the poor guy was in a wheelchair.

Neku shifted uncomfortably, stuck trying to decide if he should approach or not. The guy deserved an explanation, if nothing else. And maybe he'd feel a little less pissed off at himself if he got the chance to explain why he'd been attacking people in the middle of the night. As if he had any answers himself.

"Uh... hey," he tried, scratching the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact for the first few seconds. "I thought... maybe we should talk. If you have a sec. It's cool if you don't want to, I mean- I'd be pretty pissed at me too."

[human_sponge]

Of all the people Peter might have guessed would come to talk to him, this had to be the least likely. He glanced up when he saw the kid from the night before approaching. Even though he knew that he was responsible for the pain he was in right now, all Peter felt as he watched him walk over was pity. He knew exactly what it felt like to be used by this place, after all.

So he sat there quietly and waited for the kid to reach him, noticing that he was acting awkward and nervous. He would just have to be patient and understanding, which was luckily pretty easy for him (even when he was in a world of pain, amazingly enough).

"No, no, it's fine," he said with a shake of his head. "We can talk." It would give the kid the closure he needed, not to mention the fact that Peter could actually relate. He'd wanted to do the same thing when he'd been a victim of Special Counseling, but he'd had a hard time tracking down any of the people that he'd come across that night. It probably wasn't worth dwelling on now.

"And really, you don't need to worry about it. I... I was in your position once. I know what it feels like, how it makes perfect sense at the time. You couldn't help it, all right? You just have to remember that." It was far easier to say it to someone else, of course, and Peter had also been lucky in that he hadn't hurt that many people when he'd been taken. He'd been too focused on Sylar. Still, he wanted to help.

[composers_proxy]

The guy didn't freak out, but from someone who'd taken a severe beating last night without so much as flinching, Neku didn't really expect it. As for forgiveness... Neku couldn't say he was looking for it, couldn't say he felt like he deserved it, but the guy was surprisingly understanding. For the handful of words Neku had gotten out, this guy had already pretty much summed everything else up. He hadn't wanted to hurt anyone, but what's done was done.

"It's still pretty messed up," he sighed. Even if the guy had been in the same position before, well... all the more reason for him to understand that it sucked. And that just letting something like that go was way harder than it sounded.

"Anyway," he tried, "I thought I could make it up to you, but they took my Psychs this morning too." Even the pins Mr. H had made were gone. He hadn't expected to keep the brand-name clothing or much else, but for everything to be gone? Couldn't he keep his headphones? Were they that heartless?

[human_sponge]

Messed up was an understatement, but Peter realized what the kid was getting at. No matter how many people told him that he didn't need to blame himself, it wasn't going to be that simple. Peter was just as good as heaping all of the blame for an issue onto his own shoulders, so he could relate to that. It was true that he'd been burned badly -- the wheelchair made that obvious without him having to say a thing -- but he'd recover, and faster than if this had happened back home. Even faster if he met up with Claire at night.

What the kid said next surprised Peter for a couple of reasons. First of all, he didn't really expect anyone to make something like that up to him. In a way, the kid had been a victim just as much as he had, so he didn't need to worry about that. Secondly, he had no idea what Psychs were, but he was curious to know how they could have been of help. And lastly...

"Your things were taken? What are Psychs, exactly?" His guess was that they were something that made him able to do all the stuff he'd done the night before, but Peter could only hypothesize at what sort of item could cause that. Or maybe they were just powers that he'd been born with, same as Peter. Though the whole speaker thing had been pretty strange.

[composers_proxy]

Normally he'd be a little more hesitant to talk about it, but he owed this guy an explanation, whether he'd meant to hurt him and his friends or not. If he'd still had the pins Mr. H left him, at least he'd be able to do something, but without even that, he was pretty useless.

"This morning. They never had a problem with my headphones til these jerks took over," he nodded in the direction of the nearest soldiers. It was annoying enough that he couldn't at least shut out a lot of the noise, whether he listened to music with them or not.

"Psychs. Like how I... last night. Mostly attack stuff, but I had some healing ones too. They look like little round pins. They're like- They help me focus. Like borrowing someone's imagination to make it happen. It's-... complicated."

He kicked the floor a few times before finally looking up again. "I'm Neku. Sakuraba. But just Neku is cool."

[human_sponge]

Of all the things to take, headphones? Peter didn't see what sort of threat those would pose or what the soldiers hoped to accomplish by taking them away, but his guess was that it was all a part of getting them more disciplined -- like they could beat obedience into them if they broke them down enough times. That hadn't worked with the previous setup, and he really doubted it would work now. If anything, it was just going to make them more eager to get the hell out of here.

It sounded like Peter's first guess had been right and this kid had things that would grant him abilities. It was totally different from his own experience, and he had no idea how pins that were based on imagination could cause lightning bolts to be thrown, but he really wasn't in a position to question it. He was apparently some kind of mutant, after all.

"And they took those too?" he asked with a sigh. In a way, he was lucky. His powers came from within, so while he could be limited, it seemed that those powers could never be taken away entirely. It really would be in his best interest to meet up with Claire tonight to get his wounds dealt with.

However, then an introduction came and Peter managed a small, pained smile. "All right, Neku. I'm Peter. Peter Petrelli. There's another Peter around here too, but yeah." Most people seemed to understand the way they distinguished each other on the bulletin by now, at least.

[composers_proxy]

At least he hadn't erased the guy, but Neku still felt guilty for putting him in that chair, no matter how he might try to smile and shrug it off. It was this place's fault, he knew that, but it was still his Psychs, his powers, his body that had been used to hurt other people.

"I didn't get a lot of time to look around, but yeah, it was all gone," he sighed, annoyed, but not with Peter. At least he understood what was going on and that it wasn't some grudge match. It wasn't like he enjoyed hurting everyone who crossed his path.

"Is that what the numbers are for then?" he'd seen a Peter posting on the bulletin sometimes, but most of it wasn't relevant to what he was looking for. And he didn't want to bother asking about the little numbers on the board itself. But if there was more than one, it made sense for them to use some kind of system to tell them apart. "Couldn't you just use your family names?"

[human_sponge]

Maybe the fact that Neku's things had been taken had something to do with his brainwashing stint the night before, but maybe it didn't. It wasn't like Peter had taken inventory after waking up. He'd kind of been distracted by the pain he was in, not to mention all of the changes that the institute was going through. Still, it was something he was going to have to look into when he got back to his room that night. If all those supplies he'd gotten from the pharmacy last night were now gone, he was really going to be kicking himself.

That wasn't something he could worry about too much at the moment, though, and he instead focused on Neku's next question. It was kind of nice to be talking about something as mundane as name mix-ups, and he hoped that it would help get Neku's mind off of the fact that he'd landed him in this wheelchair. It wasn't something to dwell on as far as Peter was concerned.

"Well, our last names start with the same letter, so I guess we were worried that would get confusing too." Peter and Petrelli weren't that similar, but the two of them had enough in common that numbers had seemed like the easiest choice. "That's what he suggested, so I just went with it." And he got to be number one, which was sadly a rarity for Peter considering his older brother.

"Hopefully it's not too hard to figure out, but I'm the one who signs a one after my name." He figured he should let the kid know in case he ever wanted to contact him again for some reason.