Day 51: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

"Well, that's it for today's activities and hygiene!" The Head Doctor said with a jovial tone just after the sound system's jingle. He seemed excited and maybe even giddy. "Our nurses will now be escorting everyone back to their rooms, and some of you might find that you have brand new roommates to share your dinner with! That's right: we've gotten

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[human_sponge]

It didn't take long for Sam to show up, and Peter was glad for that. At this point, his roommate was one of the only people he could really rely on to be around. Claire had been in and out of this place too many times, and most of his other acquaintances he didn't know well enough to--

Well, to what? It wasn't like someone's competence had anything to do with whether they stayed or left. If that was the case, then Nathan definitely wouldn't have been taken twice. The only reason he felt that Sam would stay here was because he was the roommate he'd had for the longest. But if he was going to be realistic about it, then he had to acknowledge that either one of them could be gone at any minute.

Except that he didn't want to be that negative, and so he actually managed to return his roommate's smile as he walked in.

"Oh, here," he said with a glance back to the door behind them to make sure that it was firmly closed. He grabbed the gun out from under his journal and then stood up, walking it over to Sam rather than throwing it. Even if the safety was on, he didn't really feel comfortable doing something like that. It would imply a familiarity with the weapon that he just didn't have.

When Sam brought up the language thing (it was a weird way to phrase it, tossing in a biblical reference like that, but Peter chose not to question it), Peter nodded and returned to his seat. "That's right. I was with this kid who's originally from Japan, I guess, so it got a little confusing. Luckily night ended soon after and we had already gotten to where we needed to be." Peter continued to eat once he was done speaking, twirling the fork in his hand idly as he worked on the chicken.

[allroadslead]

For a split second, Sam wasn't even sure what it was that Peter had to give him, but then he remembered. Right. The gun. He'd almost forgotten he'd handed it over to Peter last night.

"Thanks." He popped the magazine, more out of habit than anything. He was pretty sure if Peter had needed to use it, he would've said something when he returned it. And sure enough, there was only the one missing bullet. From that night with...Gabriel, was it? Or Sylar, as Peter called him. Man, that felt like a long time ago.

Fortunately, he'd only vaguely seen Sylar here and there, so the guy clearly hadn't taken interest in him. Peter hadn't mentioned Sylar lately, either, which meant Sylar must've been leaving Peter alone. Or at least not bothering him any more than average, Sam supposed. Still, he wasn't going to pry unless Peter brought it up first. It seemed like a pretty dead-end situation where discussing it wasn't going to help.

Sam put the gun away in the drawer and speared a piece of chicken. "Yeah, I can imagine. I didn't know about it until I asked around. I was with my brother, so..." Obviously, he and Dean spoke the same language. Technically speaking. Figuratively, that was another issue. "Seems kinda random, though."

A bit chaotic, sure, but as far as the way this place liked to screw things up for its human lab rats, it was...well, tame. And he honestly wasn't sure if he wanted to buy into the idea that they all had some kind of mystical translator going on here. It was a bit sci-fi for his tastes. But he guessed it wasn't that out there given everything else. It would explain how, despite the amount of foreign names he'd encountered-not to mention the whole other-dimension angle-they all understood each other without a problem. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't even recall picking up on a single accent.

Though perhaps what was most concerning was the way these weird occurrences were picking up speed. He remembered not too long ago that there would be a couple of days in between, sometimes more, before anything significant went haywire. Apparently, that gap was closing up.

[human_sponge]

Even though it meant that he was giving up a useful weapon, Peter had to admit that he was glad to have that gun out of his hands. He'd used his own powers to hurt people before, but in most cases said people had been bad (in fact, it was almost exclusively one person), and somehow that was just different from shooting a gun. Even though he had experience hunting animals, he had never really enjoyed that particular family bonding experience.

His family had never been that great at the whole bonding thing in the first place, though.

When Sam mentioned that he had been with Dean the night before, Peter nodded. That must have made life easier for him, but Peter was just glad that the sudden loss of understanding hadn't ruined his night. His roommate was right about the whole thing seeming kind of strange, though, especially since it had seemed to just turn into a pissing contest between the head doctor and the new radio voice, whoever they might be.

"From what I could tell, he did it so that the new radio person couldn't help us out, but then he just turned around and explained how the rings worked to us anyway," he remarked with a frown as he started to move a piece of chicken around on his plate. He was fidgeting, but it helped him to think. "Either there's something we don't know about the rings or he just wanted the satisfaction of telling us himself."

Which seemed odd, since Landel usually took pleasure in keeping things from them, not helping them. It seemed odd for him to feed them information that would make their nights easier, unless their "progress" thus far hadn't been satisfactory. Peter had no clue what was going through the madman's head, but he didn't like it.

Finally eating the piece of chicken, Peter leaned back in his seat and shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't begin to understand why all of these things were done to them, and he admired Sam for continuing to try.

[allroadslead]

Peter's shrug pretty much summed up Sam's ultimate reaction to it, too. When it came to whatever was going in, it seemed like their best bet was waiting to see what else came their way. They didn't exactly have a lot of avenues to chase down answers.

Briefly, he wondered if maybe Castiel or the Trickster would be of any use. It was a possibility, wasn't it? The thought alone didn't sit well with him, but he knew that if one thing was true for everyone, it was that no one wanted to be here. Maybe they could use the resources. Whatever Castiel might be, he was obviously beyond your average human being; it might not hurt to at least see what he knew. If he knew anything.

Between the Trickster and Castiel, though, Sam couldn't decide which one was the lesser of two evils. He didn't know Castiel well enough and he knew the Trickster far too well. Both kind of led to the same conclusion in terms of trustworthiness.

Speaking of the rings though.

"Oh yeah-that ring. You're not planning on really pricking your finger over it, are you?"

With involvement of blood ritual-the simplicity of it aside, Sam just wasn't quite sure about it. You didn't really mess around with that kind of stuff and the fact that it was supposedly so casually applied to...perform whatever magic this happened to be, was worrisome. Blood of any kind was pretty damn powerful. Christ, he should know.

And yeah, okay, he probably would check it out himself sooner or later, but that was...different.

[human_sponge]

When Sam brought up the ring, Peter realized that he'd forgotten to return that. Honestly, he wasn't sure who it really belonged to, but Sam was the one who had found it and so Peter had decided it was more his roommate's than his. Regardless, he felt bad for having accidentally hoarded it, and quickly started digging in his drawer for it.

That was when his roommate's question sunk in properly, though, and he glanced over at the other man. With the way he asked, it was almost as if it should have been common sense that that was a bad idea. Using blood as a means to get something did seem wrong on an instinctual level, he had to admit. Adding to that the fact that the intel came from the head doctor, and it was no surprise that Sam was suspicious.

"I wasn't going to try it tonight," he said as he tossed the ring toward his roommate, figuring that that would be safe enough to catch. "I've got a pretty full schedule lined up already, so now wouldn't be the time anyway. I do think it might be worth testing, though. Are you worried that it's a bad idea?"

Peter already knew it was, but he'd done a lot of things in the past while being fully aware that they were stupid. Falling off of a roof with a serial killer in tow, for instance. Damn, that had hurt. The point was that he wasn't turned off of ideas so easily, but if Sam had something specific to warn him about, then the least he could do was hear him out.

Even if he didn't necessarily listen in the end.

Despite the unsavory subject matter, Peter wasn't too squeamish about blood, and so he continued to eat his food, watching Sam for an answer.

[allroadslead]

Sam didn't expect Peter to dig out the ring again-he hadn't really figured there was much to return in the first place-but he caught it when Peter tossed it at him.

He briefly studied it for the second time, even though he knew perfectly well what it looked like. It was weird to think of these things as being mass produced for the entire patient population. Even with the supposed limited amounts being handed out, that was still a hell of a lot going around. Items like were usually rare rare. You didn't have more than one floating through the world, sometimes two.

Otherwise, Bela wouldn't have been part of such a lucrative business.

Which was what made him wonder if it was even the real thing in the first place, or just a representation. Something to give the patients so they felt like they had a substantial object in their hands. Or perhaps it was simply used as a way to link everyone.

He set the ring down next to his tray. "I don't know," he admitted. "In my experience, witchcraft tends to come with a catch, but...I've seen it have its uses, too." With Ruby, but he wasn't sure if that counted because it wasn't as if Ruby had much of a soul left to lose. "And I've never heard of anything like this being used in this way before."

Blood solidifying into stone, that was nothing new, but using it as a save point (seriously, even using that term alone was weird as hell) was just...not common. At all. He supposed it made sense in a way, tying yourself to the ring, but doing so for the purpose of returning to where you were previously? Without doing anything else? That was the simplest and least specific ritual he'd ever heard of.

Still, considering he planned to investigate it himself, he had to admit he didn't have much of a right to actively try and stop Peter from doing the same.

He'd have to ask Ruby about it tonight, though, and see what she knew. Which would be easy to do this time around since Dean had conveniently made an appointment with another patient.

[human_sponge]

The last thing Peter had expected Sam to mention was witchcraft. He used the word as if it was the most normal thing in the world, but he'd acted that way about demons, too. Sam was pretty much as prepared as he could be for this place, it seemed like. Teleportation was something Peter could wrap his head around because he'd seen it happen and he had a small idea of how it worked. But trying to throw witches into the mix made it suddenly seem ridiculous.

Or it would have, before he'd met some of the people here: people who weren't actually people in the first place, like Brooklyn.

If Sam hadn't heard of this, even with all of the knowledge that he supposedly had, then chances were that Landel had crafted it himself. Did that mean that he was a witch-wizard-whatever? That was a bizarre thought, but it also occurred to Peter that the man could have brainwashed a patient who had that sort of power into doing it for him.

While Peter wouldn't be surprised if there was a catch, like Sam had said, he wasn't sure if that was reason enough to just avoid using something that could very well help them get either out of this place or to the Head Doctor himself. While he realized that he was playing right into Landel's hands, sometimes you had to make some sacrifices and take risks to get anywhere.

"You aren't planning on trying it out?" Peter asked carefully as he watched his roommate. He wasn't going to jump at the chance just yet, but he wasn't totally against it, either, even considering his roommate's warnings. Nathan would have called him ridiculous and teased him for even considering it, probably, but Nathan also hadn't wanted him to go to Odessa. Peter hadn't listened to him and had ended up saving Nathan's daughter as a result.

At least he could take care of Claire in Nathan's stead. Peter wished his brother was here to work out his issues with Claire himself, but that was apparently too much to ask. He frowned as he realized he was swirling his food around on his plate again, but didn't stop.

[allroadslead]

Well, okay, good question.

"I kinda wanna figure it out first," Sam said. "Just-try to avoid using it where you can."

It wasn't so much the catch itself (because there would be one, at least that much he was certain of) that was bothering him, but more that he didn't know exactly what it was. Not even a partial idea. He didn't mind diving in despite the consequences; he just preferred to know what those consequences were beforehand.

Still, he had to admit, it was probably true that just being in this place was a catch in and of itself. He wasn't sure they had much to lose anymore-friends, maybe, but even the uncertainty of the disappearances and deaths made it impossible to move forward in that regard. Everything about it was more and more of a mindtrip.

The lights went out abruptly before he could say anything else. He reached for his flashlight and flicked it on. Whatever was happening over the intercom, it sounded vaguely more ominous than usual, but-at the same time, none of them had ever managed to figure out what was going on between...the three of them. Three? There were three, weren't there.

Sometimes it felt as if he were trying to follow the convoluted plot of a really bad show.

"Um." Sam picked up the ring. "Do you mind if I take this for the night? I kinda wanna show it to someone."

[human_sponge]

Peter had no clue as to how Sam was going to figure out anything about that ring, but he decided that there was no harm in giving him a couple days to try, at the least. His roommate seemed to be an expert in that sort of stuff, after all, so he wasn't against hearing him out. If he didn't come up with anything and Peter got to a point where he really needed it, though, then he wasn't going to hesitate.

"Fair enough," he said with a nod, agreeing to avoid it but not to refrain completely. He wasn't sure how well Sam knew him yet, but there was a chance he could see the underlying message in those two words.

The intercom announcement with Landel's cheery voice was enough to irritate him all on its own, but the mention of sleep studies caused a tension to build between Peter's shoulder blades. He was going up there, dammit. He was going to help them out as much as he could, even if it didn't amount to much. He just wanted them to know that they weren't alone, regardless of what their tormentors told them.

It was funny, how Sam had been warning him against the ring only to turn around and ask for it after all that. Peter quirked a smile and then shook his head. "I don't mind," he said, though he got the feeling that "showing it to someone" might turn into "using it with someone." That was fine, though. He hadn't been planning to use it tonight, so it was no skin off his back.

"I guess we should get ready," he said, pushing away the dinner he hadn't eaten much of as he stood from his seat.