damned_institute | Day 38: Game Room

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Day 38: Game Room

She’d never been in the Game Room before.

It didn’t look spectacularly interesting, she had to admit… but it’d be more fun than just hanging out in the Sun Room, right? Yuffie idly thumbed through a deck of cards, walking around the room to examine various bits and pieces. Board games, video games, chess… No really awesome prank material that she could see, but maybe she could rope somebody into a game of poker? That could be fun, but… ah, then again, most of the patients were just like her -- they didn’t have anything really cool that she could swindle out of them. Not until Nightshift, anyway.

Still! She’d keep it in mind. It wasn’t like there was anybody else in the room yet anyway, so any potential swindling would have to wait a little while. What could she do in the meantime, huh? Pick- pocketing a nurse could be fun..! Wait -- no, not when it was quiet like this. She’d have to wait until there was more cover, unless she got distracted. Yuffie hadn’t stolen anything in days, not since that time in Doyleton, with the Kaito kid…

Yuffie smirked. That had been fun.

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The mention of poker took Peter by surprise. With most of the patients here coming from wildly different worlds, he hadn't expected most of them to even know that game. The fact that there were some things that seemed to extend beyond places and times was comforting somehow.

"I've played before," he affirmed. "I can't say I'm that good at it, though, and it's kind of hard to play with two people." He glanced around, wondering if anyone would be likely to join them for a game. It looked like a lot of the other patients already had their own decks of cards, though.

What two-player games were there? Speed, War, Gin -- he wasn't even sure he remembered the rules to most of them, though. Well, except for War, but that was because it was the simple sort of thing that was really only meant to kill time during car trips. Thinking too hard on nostalgic things like that was going to make him feel even worse, though.

Watching Tyki shuffle, Peter ended up raising an eyebrow. "Hey, you're pretty good at that."

Tyki snickered. To him the shuffling wasn't anything impressive, especially because most of his cheating already began at shuffling. Trying to keep the deck exactly the same without your opponent noticing was something that took some practice, after all.

"Let's just say I got some skill, alright?" he shrugged, knowing very well that this was an understatement. His shuffling skills might be giving him away though, but the Noah still hoped Peter would bite. Good card games were rare in this place, even if betting things wouldn't really work with all those nurses around.

"Yer up for a friendly card game or what?" he asked before leaning forward. "You ain't afraid to get yer ass handed to ya by a hobo, are ya?"

Playing on a man's pride always worked well enough. Usually...

Peter was already able to tell that he was out of his league. He had played a good amount of cards (the same as any normal person, he figured), but it wasn't something he'd ever gotten into enough to be particularly good at it. He got the feeling that if he did agree to play, he would lose horribly, and so the man's taunt didn't exactly work so well.

On the other hand, why not play? Right now, there wasn't really any better option. Peter didn't mind if he lost when it was something as simple at this, where there wasn't anything at stake. And distractions were welcome at the moment.

"No, not afraid," he said with a small smile, though he was forcing it a little. As much as he was trying to loosen up, that wasn't very easy in light of recent events. "But yeah, we can play. What game, though?" Maybe poker would still work with just the two of them, but he was used to playing it among a group.

"Poker ain't impossible with just two people, ya know." Tyki answered. Sure, groups were a lot of fun, but one-on-one worked just as well. "Five card draw?"

Without really waiting for answer he began dealing the cards. Of course, the deck had been shuffled so that the bad cards ended up in Peter's hand and the good ones ended up in his own. When each of them had five cards, Tyki placed the deck back on the table and picked up his hand.

Screw honor, easy wins with poker were definitely his style.

[You want to play it out or skip straight to the outcome?]

It didn't look like there was any choice at this point, but Peter didn't mind. Five card draw was one of the easiest types of poker there was, so he wouldn't have to worry about not remembering the rules and screwing things up.

Unfortunately, as he got a glimpse of his hand, he had to fight not to cringe. He wasn't the best with poker faces, but hopefully he was appearing expressionless. He didn't have any pairs, any sign of a possible straight, and certainly not a flush. It made it harder to even know what he should discard.

In the end, he just grabbed two of the lower-numbered cards and set them face-down, already figuring that he had no chance of winning. But that was just part of the game, and Peter wasn't a particularly sore loser. He glanced across at Tyki, watching to see what he would do.

Tyki didn't even have to look at Peter to know that the other man had a very bad hand. Instead he glanced at his own hand with a well-trained poker face before also setting two cards face-down on the table.

Since there was no betting round, Tyki picked the deck back up and began dealing the cards, already knowing he had dealt himself a four of a kind. As for Peter? Well, the poor guy happened to be completely out of luck today.

After both of them had five cards, he once again set the deck down. They would be revealing their cards next.

It was too bad they couldn't really bet anything with these nurses around, or Peter would be literally losing all his assets before he knew it!

[Sure! Sorry Tyki's such a cheat, though! XD]

Picking up the two new cards, Peter didn't hide the slump of his shoulders as he threw his hand down. He wasn't upset about it, but the fact that he hadn't even got a single pair wasn't too good for his card-playing confidence.

"I guess I'm not the best person to play with," he admitted. After all, playing with someone who didn't even present a challenge wasn't very fun, was it?

Cards aside, he was curious about what Tyki was doing with himself tonight. While the man had already asked him all the questions he'd needed to, maybe he wouldn't mind accompanying Peter tonight. Not that Peter had any concrete plans beyond grabbing that file, but maybe they could figure out what to do together.

With Elle gone and no sign of Claire in the past few days (which he didn't want to think too hard about), Peter realized he was running out of friends and even acquaintances. Maybe he should just try to track down Sylar, but he still didn't know what to do regarding that.

"Don't say that." Tyki answered as he revealed his own hand; a four of a kind. "Maybe yer just outta luck." The truth was that Peter had never even stood a chance, but no need to tell the poor guy he had been playing with a card shark.

He gathered up the cards again, only to shuffle them idly. Peter didn't seem like the type of guy who persistently kept playing until winning one game. But shuffling could only keep him occupied for a small amount of time, so the hobo quickly resorted to card tricks. Even if he didn't do so on purpose, it probably gave away to what kind of person the other man had been up against.

Unfortunately for Peter, Tyki already had plans to look forward to this nightshift. Tonight he was going to meet with Miss Shinigami in one of the men's bathrooms. Granted, it was a pretty odd place to meet a lady, but the Noah wasn't going to complain about it. It was probably much better than one of the hallways were other patients could interrupt their little game...

And playing that game was the least he could do. After all, he and Rhode had been family...

"You can say that again," Peter sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. Tyki didn't know how true that statement was, considering how the past few days had been going. On the other hand, Peter didn't want to gripe too much. It was probably the same thing that everyone else here was going through. Then again, he couldn't imagine all of the patients had murdering psychopaths that they felt responsible for. Or he hoped they didn't, anyway.

Peter wasn't that intent on playing any more, and he was glad that Tyki didn't push it. He watched the tricks the man started with, realizing that this was someone who knew his way around a deck of cards - and so he didn't feel so bad about losing so terribly.

Thinking back to what he had considered before, he decided he would just throw out the question casually and go from there. "So what are you up to tonight?" If the answer was 'not much,' then he could go ahead and make the suggestion. And if not, he would hopefully be able to figure something else out.

"Nothin' special. I just gotta meet someone t'night." Tyki answered, twirling the Queen of Diamonds between his fingers. It wouldn't be wise to share any more details about that meeting, though. He didn't want anyone to interfere while he was having some fun with Miss Shinigami.

Provided that no one would decide to pass by and play hero. But then again, he didn't see why anyone would visit the bathroom during the night. There were plenty of other useful and more entertaining places to go.

"How 'bout you?" he asked as he leaned back in his chair.

That was vague, but Peter also figured that there might not be more to it than that. Shrugging when the question was put back in his court, he glanced off and sighed. It was hard to keep trying to make plans for the future when he could barely deal with the present, but he knew that keeping one foot in front of the other was key.

"Not much, really. I need to go pick up a file from someone who was nice enough to get it for me, but I haven't figured out anything other than that." He would need to find someone to spend the night with, regardless of what he chose to do with it. Maybe he could tag along with Mello, if he really couldn't come up with anything else.

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Day 38: Game Room

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