Day 49: Late Evening

[damned_intercom]

Although the trip was longer than usual on account of the rain and wind, the buses did eventually - and safely - reach Landel's Institute. No strange happenings yet; the patients were escorted off the buses according to the usual protocol and made to go to their rooms and change back into their normal uniforms while the nurses temporarily left them

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[allroadslead]

It didn't take too long for the door to open again. Sam glanced over. Not wanting to accidentally spit out his mouthful food, he just lifted a hand in return. He was glad to see that Peter didn't seem to have picked up any new injuries from last night. Apparently, things had gone better than the night before.

If only he could be certain that that could last longer than a single night.

Sam was already starting to look away towards his dinner when Peter began pulling out his clothes. He figured it was always better to err in the side of less-awkward.

"Yeah, no problem." He reached over to flick open his journal after all. There was a limit to how engrossed in his dinner he could appear before it got weird. Reading was always a nice buffer.

These notes could really stand to be better-organized though. He hadn't exactly had time to work out a system when he'd been rushing to jot stuff down before he'd forgotten what he'd read. And yeah, they were clear enough to serve their purpose, but it bothered him all the same.

"So did you spend most of your day running from one indoor shelter to another, too?" he asked, still thumbing through his notebook as he waited for Peter to finish.

Unless Peter happened to be one of the rare people who enjoyed feeling drowned, but he didn't think so.

[human_sponge]

Nodding in thanks, Peter quickly started to get changed the moment he realized that Sam was keeping his eyes down on his journal rather than anywhere else. It took longer than he would have liked, as the wet fabric was clinging to him, but eventually he peeled everything off, rubbed himself dry with a spare shirt, and then got into a new change of the Landel's uniform.

His hair was still pretty wet, and he ended up toweling through it with the same spare shirt, as ridiculous as that was. He only kept at it for a second or two before tossing the shirt with the rest of the day's clothing.

"Yeah, for the most part," he responded to Sam's question. "I probably spent more time out in the rain than I should have, and I had to deal with Sylar at one point, but here I am." Here they both were. It was a marked improvement from last week, when he'd had to deal with his roommate dragging an unconscious sibling away from a burning bus, but Peter wondered how long the calm would last.

He took the chance to head over to his dinner, the spicy food looking pretty appetizing when he'd spent the whole day dealing with various stages of cold. He sat down and took a first bite before glancing over to his roommate. "Did you find out anything interesting while you were there? And there was no luck on my end, before you ask back." Peter knew he could have tried harder, but he just hadn't wanted to deal with the disgruntled townspeople.

[allroadslead]

Sam shook his head. "They didn't seem too interested in answering questions. Or in, uh, associating with any of us."

The townspeople hadn't been excessively chatty or anything last week, but the iron curtain had definitely slammed down today. He knew he could've really pushed if he wanted, but he wasn't looking for one specific answer. Fishing for information was a trickier process.

If he was lucky, maybe they'd be in a better mood next week. Though the thought that he'd still be here in a week, or possibly even in a year, was...depressing. He wasn't even gonna think about it right now, seriously.

"So, Sylar." Sam frowned a little, picked up his tray and balanced it on his leg instead so that he wouldn't have to keep twisting around to look at Peter. "He didn't do anything, did he?"

Anything physical was obviously near impossible during the day, but that was hardly the only way to get to someone. He knew that whatever was going on between Peter and Sylar, it was pretty personal, at least for Peter. Sylar remained the only person Peter had vehemently warned Sam about.

He hadn't spoken to Sylar since, though. Maybe he should. It wasn't that he didn't believe Peter, but it wouldn't hurt to learn more about Sylar if he could. If Sylar was someone to keep an eye on, he'd rather not have him be a mystery.

[human_sponge]

That was no surprise, then. In a way, Peter was kind of glad that he hadn't wasted his time trying to get any answers out of the townspeople, since he doubted most of the patients had made any progress with that. Not that he'd done anything else of use, but he had squared things off with both Senna and Meche, so that was something. At this point, he'd tied things up with most of the people from that night.

When Sam asked about Sylar, Peter sighed through a bite of food, chewing and swallowing before he responded. "Well, he did manage to steal some screwdrivers," he reported with a scowl. Under his watch, no less -- and he wasn't going to stop kicking himself over that. "That's all he managed to pull off, as far as I know." He hadn't been with the killer the whole day (luckily -- he wasn't sure he could handle that much exposure to the man), but the nurses had been pretty vigilant.

The point was, it was impossible for him to keep an eye on Sylar at all times. All he could do was make more and more people aware of him, so they knew to watch out for him if they happened to spot him.

He poked at his food, running through his day to see if there was anything else he needed to tell Sam. One thing jumped out in particular, of course. "Oh, and I spoke with Brian on the bus this morning. Did he tell you?" Chances were Sam had met up with his brother at some point in the day, but Peter wasn't sure if he was worth mentioning.

While he didn't know Brian particularly well, the guy had still offered to try and help him out with the whole Nathan situation. That was enough to put him on Peter's good list, though he wasn't surprised that Sam's brother was a decent person. They took after each other in that sense.

[allroadslead]

Stealing screwdrivers didn't seem particularly diabolical, but Sam had a feeling that to Peter, everything Sylar did was irritating. Still, he guessed it was good that nothing major had happened lately between the two. At least not so far.

Sam flicked his gaze up when Peter spoke next. Brian, right. Sometimes, he needed a split second to catch up to the aliases that Dean threw around. "Yeah. Yeah, he did. He said you mentioned Nathan?"

They hadn't discussed it in particular, but if he knew his brother at all-which he did, of course-it must've bothered Dean on the same level it'd bothered Sam. He still wished he could've done something more. That there was some way to fix everything.

Except there really wasn't, was there.

"It's Dean, by the way," he added, almost abruptly. "His name, I mean. He just..." Sam shrugged a shoulder, half-apologetic. There wasn't a good explanation for it without going way too far into details. He didn't doubt Peter would understand.

Anyway, he figured Peter should know, that was all. Names weren't that important here and he preferred not to outright lie to Peter for no good reason. Omitting a few key facts wasn't quite the same thing.

[human_sponge]

Apparently he was worth mentioning. Peter wouldn't have been offended had that not been the case, but it was still something to keep in mind. He nodded in response to Sam's question, though he wasn't sure if he wanted to get into a lot of details about the whole situation with Nathan, especially when he'd already done so once today. Still, Sam should at least know the basics, especially if he and his brother were actually serious about helping.

Just as he was about to start explaining, though, Sam spoke up again. It took Peter a second or two to realize what his roommate was getting at, and for a moment he looked taken aback. So... "Brian" had lied to him about that? And let him go on believing it? It did sting a little, but Peter knew that people could get protective about their identities in a place like this. He'd refrained from giving his last name during his first few days here, for instance.

"Oh," he said eventually as he stared back at his food. "Thanks for telling me. I mean... he's not gonna be bothered that I know?" Sam hadn't really hesitated to correct him on it, even though it was his brother who'd made the lie. That either meant that Sam didn't approve, or that he didn't think Dean would mind.

He was probably putting too much thought into it. Peter just made a note to keep mentally correcting the name. He'd been thinking of Sam's brother as Brian for a while now, so it was going to take some getting used to.

"Anyway," he continued, "yeah, I'm... pretty sure that Nathan's gone. Brainwashed again, I mean." What more could he say about it? Peter exhaled and ran a hand through still-damp hair as he forced himself to eat more of his dinner.

[allroadslead]

Peter seemed surprised, but he didn't appear especially bothered or anything which was good. Not that Sam had expected otherwise.

"Nah. Just tell him I told you." He didn't want Dean thinking Peter had somehow figured out the name due to some other reason. It'd raise suspicion where there was none.

Anyway, he doubted Dean would balk too much at it considering Peter had saved their lives, though knowing his brother, he was sure Dean would ask him about it if it ever came up. It wasn't important, though. Or it shouldn't have been, and maybe that was why it irked him a little that he knew Dean would say something, like he had to confirm a reason why, just to be sure Sam was thinking straight. Or whatever.

Sam studied Peter for a moment. He bit his lip. "I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want, I just...feel like I should be able to do something, sometimes."

And normally, he could've at least been able to try. It was a whole new level of frustration to not just run into a constant stream of dead ends, but to be trapped in a circle of them permanently.

[human_sponge]

That was easy enough. Peter nodded as he took a final few bites of food and then set the tray to the side of his desk. The spicy food was definitely enough to keep him alert, but he was good enough at that on his own. It was weird, how they never really slept in this place other than a few naps from time to time. He realized they had to be getting quality sleep between night and day somehow, but it still didn't feel quite the same when he "woke up" in the morning.

As much as he could have pondered over possible REM sleep, the subject of their conversation was still on Nathan, and Sam was being understandably apologetic -- for something that he had nothing to do with, even.

"Hey, I haven't even been able to do anything," he pointed out with a lame shrug. "So you don't have to feel bad or anything. I mean... he's relatively safe out there, and I know that should be a good thing, but Nathan would hate what he's going through right now."

The thought that his brother might be happy out there didn't help, either. Happiness wasn't something Nathan had ever been that set on finding in his life, and he wouldn't have wanted some pretend version of it. That was what bothered Peter the most, even more than just not having his anchor around.

"Anyway," he continued, giving a small shake of his head as if to clear those thoughts away, "what's going on with you tonight?" Peter asked mainly because he had no idea what to do with himself this time around. Maybe whatever Sam was up to would inspire him to come up with his own plan.

[allroadslead]

That was an...optimistic assessment, in generous terms, but there was no way Sam was going to say what he was thinking. He suspected it'd crossed Peter's mind already. How could it not?

But at the same time, it was true this place didn't seem very concerned about killing anyone. If Sam didn't know better, he wanted to say that there was something protecting them. Or at least keeping things from going too far. Because seriously, a haunting that went away after a couple of days? Infectious zombie bites whose effects reversed?

No, they were being preserved for something else. Though if that was true, then what did it mean for Dean?

He supposed it didn't matter. He could hardly gamble on something like this alone. And it wasn't as though death was an impossibility here. Far from it.

Peter seemed to leave the subject behind, so Sam let it go, too. "Well." He absently broke off the edge of the pie crust, dropping the crumb onto the plate. "I'm not sure to be honest. I've been trying to get a hold of the patient files for awhile, it's just been...sidelined recently."

After that incident several days ago, it'd seemed less important, too, but Sam still wanted to see it. Give the hazy memories floating in his head more solid ground. It'd help if he could see it in front of him instead of trying to split apart what was real and what wasn't.

"What about you?" His brows furrowed slightly. "You've had someone with you at night, haven't you?" It occurred to him that he wasn't even sure what Peter had really been up to recently, ever since Nathan's disappearance. He assumed Peter had something to occupy his time given he did leave every night, but-at the same time, he realized it wasn't anything more than an assumption.

[human_sponge]

The patient files? For a second, Peter wondered why Sam would even bother, since in his own experience the files hadn't been much help at all. Still, it was only a few days ago that he'd had to talk to "Matthew" instead of Sam. That whole day had been a bad kind of bizarre, and his associations with it only got worse when he took into account the fact that Nathan went missing in action right after.

Still, after what Sam went through, it made sense that he'd want to read the official file about himself. Peter had never bothered to actually find and flip through his own file, but if Sam was going to go there anyway, maybe he'd just ask him to grab it for him.

Or he could just go with him, since he really didn't have much else to do. He wasn't sure if it would be a huge help in the grand scheme of things, but you never knew. On the other hand, Sam was probably going with Bri-- Dean, so...

His roommate's question distracted him, and so Peter glanced over before nodding. "Yeah, I usually find someone to move around with. I went to meet up with the paramedic group that's starting up last night, but I couldn't get a hold of them today, so I'll have to figure something else out." There, he'd admitted he had no plans, so if Sam wanted to invite him along, he was more than open to. And if he didn't, Peter would just figure something else out.

[allroadslead]

Paramedic? Well, Peter had mentioned once that he was a nurse. It was one way to keep proactive, at least, and Sam had to admit that it was nice knowing there were a few people out there looking to help anyone who came their way. There'd been a first aid room set up, he remembered, but it seemed to have disappeared since. He probably shouldn't be surprised that something else was starting to fill that spot.

Setting down his fork on the empty plate, Sam pushed the tray off to the side. "If you don't have anyone to keep you company, you should come with us."

He didn't know if Peter had anything in particular he was searching for-his brother? Or had he given it up for a lost cause?-but if there was something pressing in either direction, Sam figured Dean could take care of that on his own. He was getting better at letting Dean out of his sight. Not by much, but he knew there was no way around it, either, if they wanted to have the most remote chance of getting anything done at all.

But anyway, there was no way he was letting Peter go out there alone if he could do something about it. He couldn't protect everyone, but that didn't mean he couldn't try with one person at a time.

[human_sponge]

There was the offer. That had come easily enough; in fact, it didn't seem like Sam had to think twice about it, which was a relief. Peter didn't want to think that he was somehow being a burden on his roommate, but they'd only gone out together once, and that had been Sam's first night. He didn't see what was wrong with teaming up if one of them didn't have any other plans.

It sounded like he might be a third wheel, which could be difficult, if only because of Nathan's situation. Having to see Dean and Sam interacting when he was painfully aware of his own brother's absence didn't sound like the best time, but he tried to shove that thought to the side. Sam had been nice enough to invite him, and he wasn't going to back out on that. He just wished it could have been a group of four rather than three.

"I might just have to take you up on that," he said as he stood from his chair and went to his closet. Opening it up, he grabbed the shovel that had been meant for Claire. While he was glad to have an extra, he might have been happier to have someone to give it to. Not necessarily Claire, since the girl had been through enough, but... someone from home. Someone who knew about powers and all the crazy twists and turns he'd navigated through in the past few months.

Though when Peter turned away from the closet and regarded his roommate, he had to wonder why he was complaining. They'd met here, but Sam had been through a lot of similar stuff -- maybe even worse, with all the demons he apparently had to contend with. Regardless of any wounds that might be opened up by running around with a pair of brothers, Peter was still glad to be spending time with his roommate.

But before he could say anything further, the intercom went off.

[To nightshift.]