damned_institute | Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

The boy stopped suddenly at the name his friend used, and were it not for the mask covering his mouth would have been pouting visibly. His eyes showed his sadness as he looked to the floor though.

Seeing this, the shorter of the two remaining men forget out his problems with the other's grooming and stepped up to the boy, patting his head. "Y'mean Eneas, don't ya João?" he corrected, smiling as best he could for the both of them. Maybe bringing the boy had been a mistake; they'd known this was going to be hard no matter what, but Eneas had just insisted on coming. He missed João just as much as they did, after all.

"Yeah, and us too right. Maureo and Carlos," he indicated him, then the other in turn, "Come on, you haven't forgotten us that badly, have you?"

"Couldn't have." Carlos gave Maureo a glance back and mouthed that he 'shut up' before looking back at João with the same smile. "Right?" Because if he didn't even remember that much, it might be too much for Eneas.

Tyki blinked in surprised when Ease suddenly stopped in his tracks, obviously hurt for some reason. But it wasn't before Clark had 'corrected' him that he put two and two together.

They had different names?

A look of skepticism spread on the Noah's features, looking at his friends as if they were telling him a joke. He let out a snort, though not a very amused one, and began shaking his head in denial.

"Hey, quit joking around, okay? 'Cause this ain't funny." Though if it had been his black side he would have burst out in laughter nonetheless.

He thought they were joking? Who would joke about something like this?! João must have been stuck on that other personality, or he wouldn't have been acting like this was one big joke. Or maybe he would have, but they tried not to think so much about that.

"No, it's not anywhere near funny," Carlos's face fell, but he kept his hand firmly on Eneas's head. This had been too early for them to come then; it didn't sound as though this place had made any progress on getting their friend back to normal, and if he couldn't even take them seriously then there was no point in being here really.

"Hey," Maureo nudged Carlos a bit, having come up to them now. He understood same as Maureo did that this could be pretty bad with how João was responding. "Maybe we should take Eneas and head ba--" he whispered down, but stopped when Eneas moved again.

He stepped away from Carlos's hand at his head and went for João again, only this time he didn't stop. It didn't matter if he didn't remember their names right, João was still João and Eneas had missed him and wanted him back. So he needed to do something before the older men took him away (as he knew they'd been whispering about. When he got up to João, he only hesitated a little before reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a deck of cards to hold up at him. João had always brought him things, so bring him something he liked was good too, right?

Tyki remained silent for a moment, biting his lip. There were many things he wanted to say to them, but no word ever left his throat. He honestly had no idea how he should deal with the situation.

"My memory's fine." he eventually managed, shifting a bit on the chair he was sitting on. Of course the hobo hadn't forgotten them. Or at least, he hadn't forgotten Ease, Momo and Clark. The people standing in front of him, they looked like them, acted like them...they had to be them, save for the names. No one could make such a good copy.

And then 'Ease' continued to approach him until the young boy stood right in front of the Noah, holding out a deck of playing cards. Definitely something Ease would do, he thought to himself. Quiet and still innocent, exactly how he remembered the boy to be. He almost smiled.

"You brought cards?"

Eneas's eyes brightened a bit, and he nodded a little too enthusiastically, holding up the card a little more so that João would know to take them. This wasn't silver, so João wasn't allowed to tell him he had to keep it this time. Maybe Maureo and Carlos had given the deck to him first, but it was still for João and he needed to take it.

Instead of responding to João's statement about being fine (at least in memory) or following up on their plan of taking Eneas out, Maureo and Carlos only smiled. Somehow that kid knew just what to do to ease the tension of a situation - whether at a mental hospital or in at a job trying to get their lazy butts up and ready for work. Looked like he could work without a frying pan and spoon here at least.

"Don't keep him waiting there, João. His arm'll fall off eventually!" Maureo decided to tease as a follow up to Eneas's own actions.

Carlos joined in as well, grinning slyly, "Or are ya scared you'll get whipped if we play a few rounds? You've probably gotten rusty being stuck here and all, huh?"

"Oi, I haven't gotten rusty!" Tyki objected, though he still didn't take the cards right away. Something felt wrong, somehow, though he couldn't really tell what it was. He once again glanced at his friends. Or what looked like to be his friends. Was this Landels doing? Were they real or were they not? Maybe they were fed the same lies as he had been, with the only difference that they believed in it?

He sighed, once again shaking his head. This was getting ridiculous. For God's sake, it was just a deck of harmless playing cards! And here he was, not even sure if he should take them or not. Touché Landels. If this really was their doing, they definitely got points for it. Maybe it was his black side poking through his white right now, but he almost wanted to laugh at the situation. For now, he just grinned.

He finally reached out, hesitating another second before taking them. A part of him still thought he probably shouldn't, but...

...he supposed 'Ease' could be convincing in his own way.

"You sure you wanna get yer ass handed to ya by a lunatic?" he said. He wanted to shuffle them, only to realize that he couldn't play very well with one of his arms in a sling. " ....huh."

"Says you!" Carlos laughed.

Seeing their friend was injured should have been sad and all, but there was a bright side to it for them at least. Having João short a hand would make it easier for them to win against him for a change! It was a lot harder to cheat solo with only one arm. They could catch him at it better too!

"Only if that lunatic doesn't use being crazy as an excuse when he gets his ass handed to him," Maureo set the ground rules and, stepping up all the way finally, gave Eneas a look, "You be sure to tell us if he's cheating, all right Eneas?"

Maureo looked out at the room instead. "They got a table or something? I mean, I guess we can play on the floor..." But with a place like this, they might throw a fit if a patient's on the floor.

Eneas's eyes brightened when the cards were finally taken by his friend, and after looking up at Maureo, over at Carlos, and then back at João, his eyes closed.

And behind that little mask, he was smiling.

"That's three against one injured, crazy man. That ain't fair." Tyki pointed out as his 'friends' search for a place to play their game. Figures they'd use his broken arm to their advantage to beat him. Even that had been right. He smiled a bit to himself, though it was a smile without humor.

He began liking this visit less and less. Even a card game couldn't lift his tension, or even begin to improve things. If anything, it only made things more difficult.

Not that he could get out of any card game with his ego still in tact, so he guessed he was stuck playing for now.

"It's plenty fair. And anyway, Eneas ain't playin'," Maureo pointed out, "'Sides, it's always been every man for himself. No two or three against anyone." He took the card deck from his friend and began shuffling the thing himself. João certainly couldn't do it himself with his arm like that. "Not our fault you got your arm in a sling either."

"How'd that happen, anyway?" Carlos asked as he dragged a table over. He'd never seen João injured before.

While the other two poked and prodded, Eneas tugged on João's shirt to get him up to play. Everything would be better if João played some cards with them. Better than it was, he hoped. Maybe he'd even start remembering things again, like their names.

Tyki shrugged. "Really long story involving a tree." And some guy who could do telekinesis, but he wasn't about to tell his 'friends' that. Neither did he go with the nurse's version, because the Noah happened to be fairly sure he didn't fell from the stairs that night.

'Ease' began tugging on his ugly shirt, urging to go and play with them. "Yeah, I'm comin'." he answered before he got up and moved to the table 'Clark' had dragged over.

But after the first round had started, Tyki couldn't really concentrate on the game at hand. In many ways it was like playing a game with the gang back home; everyone cheating like their life depended on it, the boy watching them play...but at the same time, it wasn't.

He laughed after finishing the third round he had lost in a row. "Guess I lost again." At least he wasn't stripped down to his underwear right now. He began gathering up the cards with his good hand.

"Tree?" Both of the older men only stared a moment before waving it off.

"Probably don't wanna know about that one..." Maureo laughed, "though with you it might be that you just got hurt trying to rescue a cute little kitten, huh?"

They all gathered around the table and the teasing went on in the the same manner as they played. It naturally got worse when each hand concluded, but it was all in good fun. When João finally laughed himself, it was mission accomplished!

Carlos waved a hand when João started taking up the cards. "Hey hey, what're you doing?"

"Yeah, we're not done beating the pants offa you yet!" Maureo chimed in. They hadn't been doing any stripping since the staff probably wouldn't have liked that, but the metaphor still worked outside of strip poker.

"Jeez, gimme a break!" Tyki pouted. Even if he couldn't concentrate on cheating properly, he still didn't like losing a card game. "I'm playing without my smokes here." And he wasn't even using his supposed insanity as an excuse, so he thought he deserved a break.

He snagged the last card from the table, which just happened to be the Joker. He offered the card a thoughtful glance for a moment as he held it between his index- and middle-finger, only to place it back in the deck.

"So how have ya been?" The Noah asked casually. Maybe he was just trying to find something, anything, even if he didn't knew what he was looking for. He wasn't even sure what he was hoping for; a confirmation that these people were his real friends, or just very good copies.

"Ohhhh, so that's why you're being such a grouch." It was just too much fun to tease him, but Maureo understood how it must feel. João'd always had a smoke in his mouth whenever they saw him outside of when he slept. "Heard this place was smoke free at the door. Pretty uptight." He bristled a bit.

Carlos gave Maureo a nudge in the side, "Says the one who was fussing over his hair all the way here."

"S-shut up!"

Another quick chuckle for Maureo's embarrassment before Carlos was leaning over towards João instead. "Don't worry," he whispered while trying not to be too conspicuous, "We'll slip you some later. We'd get in trouble if they saw it now though." Maybe it'd break the rules a bit, but they were friends, and friends looked out for one another. "Don't tell anyone though, got it?"

Now over his embarrassment, Maureo leaned back in his chair. "We've been good. Pretty boring without you around though. It's just not the same at the mines, ya know?" He nodded across the table. "'Couse Eneas has missed ya the most." Something pretty damn obvious for where the boy had been for the three games - on João's side of the table, close as possible.

"Heh, no one will ever know." Tyki said, though there was no reason to warn him as he wasn't ~~that much of~~ an idiot. Despite the situation, he found himself looking forward to the cigarettes. He couldn't call himself a chain-smoker if he didn't take any smokes he could get. He only hoped they'd thought to include a lighter, because that'd save him another trip to the kitchen tonight.

'Even the whole thing with the mines is the same, huh?' Tyki thought to himself, a little bitterly. He resisted the urge to bite his lip. He smiled nervously at the mention that they'd missed him - 'Ease' in particular. Of course, he had been aware the boy was sitting so close to him, and the hobo wasn't sure whether to ruffle the kid's hair like he usually did once in a while, or not do anything altogether. Another point for Landels for making him feel so conflicted while hanging around with his friends, or what should be his friends. This was really getting ridiculous.

"I'll be outta here before you know it." he said. Whenever he found a way out, at least, but a few walls had never stopped the Noah of Pleasure anyway. "I always came back after my part-time job, right?"

He normally wouldn't even have mentioned his 'part-time job' if he could have avoided it (if only not having to answer questions), but this wasn't really a normal situation. He wanted to know what else was the same.

They had thought getting some smokes would make him happy, more so than the cards even, but having Eneas hold out something like that to João would have gotten them in trouble in more ways than one. Being secretive was fine for now.

"Make sure that you are! Like I said, things're boring without you!" Maureo grinned but soon lost both his expression and the excitement right along with it.

That "part-time job" again.

Carlos also lost his smile and looked back at Maureo again, them both matching expressions to the other. "Right," Maureo said at length, "Sure you did. Every time!" he tried to smile, but the nervousness was easy to see from the both of them

Even Eneas had looked down again.

Tyki guessed he should take that as a 'yes, I have a part-time job in that made-up life, too.' Except the reaction of his 'friends' didn't make any sense. They were never really thrilled whenever he had left, but he hadn't expected the tension to rise to completely new heights when he had just mentioned it.

"What's wrong?" he asked carefully, titling his head. "Something I said?" It was pretty obvious he really had no idea why his 'friends' were so tense all of a sudden.

Unless they knew, but that couldn't be it. He had always made sure to be vague about the whole thing, and how could they have found out when he had been in China last he remembered? Even if these people were his real friends, there was no way in hell that they could possibly know anything about the black side of his life.

Unless there were badly drawn pictures with his name on it over there as well.

"Nothing's wrong!" Carlos assured, then began reaching for the card deck João still had, "Come on, let's give it one more game before they kick us out. Whaddaya say?"

That part time job - they knew almost too much about it after what the staff here had told them. They'd gotten even more from the police at a time. It wasn't stuff any of them needed to hear or be talking about again, least of all Eneas. There had been enough problems in convincing the boy that this was best for João, and bringing up stuff like that again... well, it might just be too hard to make him leave when it came time.

Maureo waved a hand at Eneas, "We'll let Eneas play too. We've been teaching him you know. Soon he'll be able to beat the pants offa all of us!" Really, they usually just let the boy win, but it was still fun watching him make the effort. Or cute. Yeah, cute was the word.

Tyki stared at his 'friends' for a moment, but eventually shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "If you say so." There wasn't much of a point in digging more, he guessed, so he let it rest. Even if it was still pretty odd they had reacted that way.

But the subject had already been changed anyway. "Uh...sure." The Noah said as he leaned forward and offered the cards to 'Clark'.

"You guys are a bad example for him with all the cheating, ya know that?" he told the two men as he sat back. He grinned slightly, fully aware that he probably wouldn't be a very good example himself.

He glanced at the kid in question, forcing a smile on his face. 'Ease' was probably the most difficult to deal with right now. If there was any human the Noah of Pleasure had a weak spot for, it'd be this kid.

"Guess it'll be our first round, then."

"What cheating? There's no cheating here!" Maureo bristled as if in offense, but the smile that had returned to his face gave him away. They all knew full well that they were the best cheaters around! Well, almost the best. Unless there were little brats that turn out of be wolves in sheeps' clothing!

Eneas wasn't one of those. Not yet, and really they didn't want him to be. He was a good kid and they liked him that way, but necessity would force them to teach him properly eventually. He'd need to learn to cheat like a pro if he wanted to get anywhere with the kind of life they had.

For now though, everything was just for fun. "Go ahead and get a seat Eneas," Carlos nodded Eneas to the other side of the table while he took the cards to shuffle them. As the boy went off, he whispered to João once again, "No cheatin' for him. He's still learning. Usually we let him win too." If João was any part the same as they'd known him, then he'd understand that at least.

Eneas slowly drug a chair over and hopped up into it before closing his eyes as a "smile" towards João. It would be his first round with him!

"Jeez, I lost again." Tyki commented as put down the cards after the first fair round of poker he had played in...he couldn't even remember when he had last played fair. For some reason purposely losing was harder than trying to win, though.

He glanced at 'Ease' for a moment, managing another smile. "Looks like you won, kid."

Dealing with this was easier if he simply ignored all the fake names thrown around. Arguing wasn't getting him anywhere if they believed this place's lies anyway. It'd just be a bothersome task with no results, he told himself.

"Yeah, we all really suck!" Maureo grinned as he patted Eneas on the back.

Carlos picked up the cards for another round when he saw the nurses starting to shoo the other visitors out and begin taking patients back. That time already, huh? "Well, Eneas," he spoke across the table with another forced (though admittedly convincing) smile, "Better tell João what'cha want to now." He nodded out to the room.

Eneas looked quickly to see that others were leaving and swirled his head back to João just as quickly. He didn't want to have to go! This had been so much fun, and it had been so long since he'd been able to even see João! Did they really have to...?

"It'll be all right," Maureo reassured when he saw the boy's slight panic, "We'll come and see him again! Next week if we can." His smile wasn't at all forced, though there was a slight sadness to it. He hoped that things might get cleared up before the next week rolled around, but that was probably being too hopeful.

After another look at the two he got to leave with, Eneas gave João the biggest set of puppy-dog eyes he had and, for the first time that whole visit, said something. "Come home soon?"

The Ease he knew had always been good with the puppy eyes, especially when they were about to separate. It made the Noah wonder how the head doctor had managed this.

"Like I told ya, I'll be out before you know it." Tyki assured him, managing another smile. And that was the truth, even he probably didn't mean it the way his 'friends' would think he had. He'd be gone as soon as his abilities worked properly again ~~only to be maimed beyond recognition by a certain family member who shall not be named~~.

"Well, see ya I guess." he continued after a pause, he leaned back in his chair as 'Clark' gathered up the cards. There wouldn't be any time for more rounds anyway, though the Noah couldn't be sure how long he would have been able to keep this up without making them suspicious.

"If you don't hurry up they're gonna drag you fellas out by the hair." he teased, even if one of his 'friends' didn't have any hair to begin with. It was a figure of speech, anyway.

The puppy-dog eyes still persisted, but João's reassurance made what could be seen of the boy's face brighten. Things would be all right when he got out, and it'd be back to how things were. João said it would, and he'd never lied before. Not really...

"We're goin', we're goin'!" Carlos griped a bit before snapping a rubber band around the deck and tossing it João's way, "But you're gunna want that, you know."

"Not that Carlos's got any hair to be draggin'!" Maureo came around from the other side of that table and slung an arm around his shoulder. "And these too," he followed but didn't outright hand anything to the man. Instead he used his free hand to quickly slip a small box of something into João's pocket. The box was a little more important than the deck of cards, but João wouldn't be getting very far for lighting the contents without what Carlos had so skillfully hidden within the deck. João'd be smart enough to figure it out, they hoped.

"My head's none of your business!" Carlos went around Eneas's side of the table and patted the boy closer towards their friend. "Yeah, see ya. Better say goodbye Eneas," he prompted.

Tyki indeed had never lied to them before. He just didn't tell them anything, or twisted the truth around a bit, but that wasn't the same as lying in his book. In any case, 'Ease' had brightened. He caught the deck of cards with his less-injured hand, seeing a nurse almost objecting for throwing items around.

"Just warnin' you." he pointed out right before an arm was slung around his shoulder and felt something slipped into his pocket. Tyki didn't even need to check to see what it was. Copies or not, they were still sneaky, sticky-fingered bastards. He guessed it had it's advantages.

"You probably don't wanna get into a fight with 'em." he continued, gesturing to the nurses. "They got pointy needles and padded rooms." And those were the daytime versions. He hadn't seen a nurse during the night yet, but if they were about the same as the animals, they'd be bothersome to get rid of.

The Noah smiled a little awkwardly at 'Ease', hesitating for a moment before saying: "We'll play another round of cards some time, alright?"

"Hey come on, we could take a buncha little old ladies!" Maureo gave João a shake before letting go of his shoulder. His purpose had been completed.

Carlos grinned wildly, "You'd actually hit a girl? That's loooow." He folded his arms. "Wouldn't wanna get into that kind of situation though, so guess we gotta get."

Eneas knew it was really time to go now. He gave João one more look of a kicked puppy before giving a nod that they would. Some time they'd all be playing again. Together and not here.

Day 36: Waiting Room, Lobby 2

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