(Untitled)

[once_invisible]

That the island (or whatever runs it) has an extremely distinct sense of humor is something that hasn't really escaped Rodney Skinner's attention. The fact that the bookshelf keeps giving him titles such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Dracula hasn't passed him by, and neither has the appearance of his coat and facepaint. Today,

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[notcooldude]

"Dude, fifty-two card pick-up?" Hurley says, as the man gathering up all the cards notices he's there. Not that Hurley's easy to miss. He holds up a hand to point. "There's one under the couch. Want me to get it?"

He's come into the rec room to see if he can't watch a decent movie to kill some time, but he's not sure he really ought to anymore. This guy might want some quiet for his ... card-playing-things. He's tempted to offer to join him, but the guy might not want a partner, and leastwise Hurley knows where his skills lie. Not in board or card-games: he never wins. Maybe he's just not cut-throat enough to try hard enough.

[once_invisible]

"If you wouldn't mind," Rodney replies, the same tone of vague guilt in his voice. "These things are the devil, sometimes." A beat. "Dude." The word, unfamiliar as it is, isn't one that Rodney isn't willing to put into his vocabulary. It sounds odd on his tongue, but he doesn't put any derision behind it.

"Again, apologies for the mess."

[notcooldude]

Easily, as if it weren't anything big or any inconvenience, because it isn't, Hugo moves over to the couch, dropping to his knees to dig for the card, even as he carries on the conversation. Tries to, at least. He likes ... conversing. With people.

But the way the other guy says 'dude,' after him, picking right up on Hurley's slang, makes him laugh, until he bumps his head on the nearby coffee table. The laugh turns into a 'dammit,' but he grabs the card and sits back up to hold it out to the guy anyway.

"So I'm Hugo," he says. "Hugo Reyes. I live ... " He waves his free hand in the vague direction of 'toward Sawyer's hut.'

[once_invisible]

"Rodney Skinner, pleasure to meet you," comes the response, as he takes the card back with a nod of thanks. "From - that-ish direction. About seven months and running, now, I reckon." Grinning, he settles back on his haunches, straightening out the part of the deck he's managed to recollect so far.

"And formerly of London. Although I got here by way of Mongolia. Around 1899. Apologies get long around here, but it can't really be helped." Getting back down on his hands and knees, he resumes searching for cards. "So, where're you from?"

[dreambigger]

"Need a hand?" Eames asks, eyebrows arched high and amusement barely hidden (he isn't really trying) as he looks down at Rodney, arms folded over his chest. That it's a mistake he would never let himself make isn't something he finds it necessary to comment on. Not everyone can be him, after all, and he at least knows from games in the past that Rodney is typically skilled with cards. "Decks'll do that."

[once_invisible]

"A hand would be nice," Rodney admits, reshuffling the stack of cards that he's collected so far. He grins quickly, glad to have come across someone he knows as opposed to a stranger. (He doesn't particularly mind being laughed at. This isn't the worst of situations to be caught in, after all.) "Provided you wouldn't really mind lending one."

[dreambigger]

"Not at all," Eames says with a shrug, kneeling on the floor to begin gathering some of the cards that have fallen. For someone else, it admittedly might have been tempting to say that he did mind, but Rodney's good company, and he's been thrown off his own game lately anyway. There's no point in just standing around watching. "So, the cards got away from you, did they?"

[once_invisible]

Rodney laughs, before adding, in a mock long-suffering sort of tone: "Cheeky little buggers. Worlds of trouble to keep 'em together and what do I get for it? 52 card pick-up." He lets out a bark of frustration as he reaches under one of the chairs, bringing out yet another card. "So, aside from helping out poor souls like me, what've you been up to?"

[scotsfriction]

"Don't feel bad." Amy shrugged easily, waving a hand dismissively as she bent down to help him pick up the cards. This is not Vincent. It was weird to have to remind herself that, but there was something about the way Rodney acted that reminded her of him, despite facts. She was certain if there was a man who looked like Rory but wasn't Rory it would sort of do her head in. It might be worse, but it wasn't easy.

"Happens to the best of us," she assured him, packing a few cards into a neat pile. "Can't seem to keep the cards together myself."

[once_invisible]

"That makes at least two of us, then," he managed, as he leaned back down to start picking up cards once more. To say the least, he enjoyed Amy's company, even if he'd never really figured out exactly who Vincent was beyond someone she'd known before arriving on the island.

"Fancy a game once we've gotten all the cards back together?"

[scotsfriction]

"There was no use dwelling on those folk that weren't here and weren't likely to be showing up any time soon. Vincent, the proper Doctor, River they were all people in the past. Of course she would be pleased as all get out to see them if they managed to show up, but she wasn't going to sit around and wait. What was the fun in that? Besides she had Rory. Rory was more than enough.

Shuffling the cards she had already managed to gather, she nodded. "Yeah, I would. That sounds like it could be a lot of fun."

[once_invisible]

"You got a game in mind?" he asked, straightening up once he'd collected the remainder of the scattered cards. "I've learned a few since coming here, but I wouldn't be averse t' learnin' a few new ones." The truth was that he rather enjoyed the process of learning card games, mostly because each seemed to have a trick to it that, once discovered, made it infinitely easier to play, if not necessarily to win. There were strict games of chance, of course, but that became a matter of navigating around the people who were also playing.