Always Silent, Peter Darling

Chapter 14

"I'd say it's nice to meet you, Peter, but I don't think either of us want to be here," John said with a sigh.

Peter lightly shook his head, he hardly knew what was going on, and if May wanted him here he knew it wouldn't be good.

"Anyways," the man looked around the apartment, "Might as well get comfortable, don't know when they'll need you but it could take awhile. Help yourself to what's in the kitchen, but there's usually not much." John walked over to the warn little couch that set in the living room before setting down. He propped his leg up on the coffee table as he grab a remote to the old box tv to turn it on.

The image was fuzzy and flickered out every so often.

The entire apartment was fairly bare. There were no personal items anywhere or pictures on the yellowing walls, this was no home to anyone.

The kitchen counters were cluttered with newspapers and takeout boxes, strangely enough some of the papers reported on the alien attack of Manhattan, meaning that unless John had been living here since then, they were left by the previous occupant of the apartment.

Peter looked over at the overflowing trash can before deciding to poke around the cabinets. He eventually found what he was looking for, a box of trash bags.

Ripping one of the fresh bags out seemed to draw the attention of John, "What are you doing there, kid?" He asked plainly.

Peter was ducked down behind the counter, out of view from the man. He quickly stood up holding up the trash bag.

With wide eyes, as if he were asking a question, he motioned to the clutter on the counters then made a sweeping motion with his arm towards the open trash bag.

"You... want to clean that up?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

Peter nodded.

John just shook his head with a perplexed look in his eyes as his gaze went back to the tv, "Knock yourself out," he said with a faint laugh.

Peter started clearing off the counters and tidying things up. It didn't feel much different than cleaning May's apartment, plus he didn't want to just sit around. Didn't want to think about the situation at the moment, cleaning was easy and mindless, he'd rather do that.

Within the hour Peter finished the kitchen, he took the now full trash bag he used to clean off the counter setting it next to the trash can as he replaced the overflowing bag in the can with a new one.

He then grabbed the two bags and got John's attention as he tapped on the counter.

When John looked over, Peter held up the bags as he motioned his head towards the front door.

John just looked at him strangely with an eyebrow raised, "... just be quick."

Peter nodded when he walked out the door.

It didn't take him long to go down the stairs and find the back door that lead to the alleyway. Dumping the bags in the dumpster he walked back up to the second floor.

It wasn't till he put his key in the door of 221 that the flip phone went off.

He pulled out the phone as he closed the door behind him.

9:24AM

Unknown: R-Z -> X-22 10:30 Blue

John was sitting at the table with the map when Peter looking up from the phone. He walked over to the man as he held it out to him.

"Looks like you're getting an easy one first time around," He glanced back at the map as he found the same coordinates on the grid labeled by the yard sticks.