Dementia?

Chapter 4

Suicide ran behind Cancer, trying to keep up. Cancer walked like a man on a mission all the time and Suicide's legs could barely keep pace. “Where are we going now?” he asked. 

“First things first.  We are going to your room where you will gather all of your things. Henceforth, you will be staying with me,” Cancer replied, slowing his gait to allow his boyfriend to keep up. 

“What? Why?” 

“So I can keep you safe, Billy,” he answered, remembering Time's threat and Fever's fiasco at breakfast. “By the way, our professional names are no longer necessary with each other. You may call me Gerard. Time knows about us. It will soon get around and I have no desire to hide you away like a dirty little secret. You are nothing to be ashamed of and I do not wish for others to see it that way,” he added. 

Suicide was stunned. Cancer wasn't ashamed of him! Still, he had questions. “But, Can... Gerard!  We're both boys! What will everyone say?” 

Cancer stopped abruptly and looked down at him. “Are you not brave enough to face their snide comments, Suicide? Do their opinions mean that much to you that you would forsake happiness, both yours and mine, to please them? Time knows which means that soon, everyone else will too. We can emerge as a couple on our own terms or wait for everyone to find out for themselves. What is your wish?  Or are you ashamed of me?” 

“No! I could never be ashamed of you! I don't care what anyone says! They already hate me anyway so what do I care?” 

“Fine then. It is settled,” he said, pulling Suicide into his arms. Suicide stood there, feeling happy and complete, and snuggled his head into Cancer's chest. “There are not many left who think so ignorantly anyway. Still though,” he told him, running his fingers through his boyfriend's mop of black hair, “Of those that remain, I will suffer their slings and arrows for us both.” Cancer kissed the top of Suicide's head and smiled. “Now come.  Let's go get your things.”  

Together, they walked hand in hand towards the elevator. Because they only had eyes for each other, they didn't see Fever as he passed them in the hallway carrying a mop and bucket. “It all makes sense, now,” he thought, staring at them with a look of disgust on his face. As he stood there, he promised himself that he would have his revenge on them both. 

“Okay. So, here we are,” said Cancer as they approached the Department of Mental Skills. He stopped outside the double doors and looked through the folder he had gotten from Time. Inside it were 6 envelopes, each one bearing the name of a team member and containing the same form letter. “Billy, do you know Dementia? He lives here too, doesn't he?” 

“Yeah, but he might not be here.” 

“Why? Shouldn't he be at work now?  The MS staff usually work from the Whispertorium.”

“Yeah, but Dementia is kinda... different.” 

“Well, the Whispertorium is here so if he is working today, as he ought to be, he should be in this department,” said Cancer. 

“Yes and no.” 

“Yes and no? What do you mean?” 

“Well, he should be here but sometimes, Dementia forgets things. He forgets things a lot if he forgets to take his suppression pills and he usually forgets those too,” said Suicide before sadly saying, “He might be lost.” 

“Ugh. Great. We will have to put a chain around him to keep him to us.”

“Gerard! No! Don't be mean to him! He's just...” Suicide began. He was interrupted by a scream. Both he and Cancer looked at each other and ran through the doors. 

“What is the meaning of this?” yelled Cancer, although he could see the answer for himself. 

“I'll cut you! I'll cut you all!” screamed Paranoia. She was standing on a garbage can in the corner, naked save for the funnel shaped, aluminum foil hat she wore on her head and the large knife she held in her hands. 

Cancer pushed his way through the crowd that had formed. “Paranoia! What are you doing?” He didn't expect a sensible answer, which was good because he didn't get one. 

“The mortals are spying on me! They want to take me away to live with them and try to eradicate me! I know it! I just know it! All these people here,” she said, pointing at the crowd, “are trying to take me to them! But they're gonna have a fight on their hands! Yes, they will! No one takes Paranoia away!” She took a swipe at someone with her knife and missed. Her intended victim ran to the back of the crowd. 

“Oh for the love of... Paranoia, no one wants to take you away. No one wants you eradicated. You are useful,” Cancer said, trying to calm her. “Now please. Paranoia. Give me the knife.” He held out a hand. 

“No! You're one of them! The leader of them all!” she yelled, like it was a grand pronouncement of some type. “I can see it in your eyes!” 

“Now, now. Let's be reasonable about this. We can talk about it if you will just give me the knife,” he repeated. 

“Never!” she yelled as she held the knife above her head like some kind of warrior princess. She stood silent for a moment and looked around before grabbing Cancer by the tie and yelling, “They want my golf balls!” She abruptly jumped on him, knocking him to the floor, and ran through the double doors and into the hallway screaming. Suicide ran over and knelt beside him. 

“Gerard! Are you okay? Please be okay!” he cried. 

“She mussed my suit,” Cancer said as he sat up. He quickly stood, wiped himself off, straightened his tie, and walked to a phone in the corner. 

“Security,” said a voice on the other end of it. Cancer was relieved to hear that it was Justice who answered. 

“Justice? Cancer. Paranoia just escaped from Mental Skills. She was armed. Can you take care of it, please?” 

“That's what we're here for, sir.” 

“Thank you, Justice. Have a good day,” he said and hung up. Then, turning to the crowd, “Are any of you here Dementia?” 

No one raised their hand. 

“Very well, then.  Does anyone know where Dementia is? Has anyone seen him?  Is he working today?”

“No one's seen him for the past 3 days,” said someone whose name he thought was Anxiety. 

“Great,” he thought, sighing. He looked at Suicide, who was in the corner clutching Malice, and motioned for him to come. 

“Y-yes?” he asked, walking over.

“Can that one be believed? The one who spoke?” 

“Uh-huh,” said Suicide, nodding. 

“Very well. Thank you, Billy,” he smiled. 

“You're welcome!” he said. He looked down at his shoes, smiling and blushing. He was glad he could help. 

“Okay, everyone.  Listen up!” said Cancer, turning to address the crowd again. “If any of you see Dementia, tell him that he is to see Cancer immediately! Do you all understand this?” 

Everyone nodded. 

“Quite well.  Now, get back to work. The day has just begun and the show is over. I want to see productivity out of all of you. Go!” He watched the crowd disperse then, turning to Suicide, said, “Lead on. Take me to your room.” 

“'kay.” he said. He walked down through the department, one hand holding Malice by the arm and the other holding Cancer's hand, and into a very large room that looked like a theater.  The Department of Mental Skills was also home to the Whispertorium and many people from other departments used it in their regulation.  It connected the MS dorms to the MS department.

“Tell me about your job.  What do you do here?” asked Cancer as they passed through the room.  It was full of overlapping conversations.

“You don't know?” 

“Well, I know how it works and what it is that you do but I am curious as to what you say.  I would like to know more about you and that is something that I had never thought to ask.”

“Well, I don't know what the others say but when I work, I just...” Suicide paused. He hated his job. It made him sad. He hated making mortals go away. He hated making them die. He knew he had to do it though. The mortal realm needed regulating and he was a regulator. But what if Cancer didn't like him anymore after he found out what he did? Still, he had to tell him. “I just tell them to stop the pain. I whisper things. I tell them that it's just like going to sleep except they don't wake up and if they don't wake up, they won't hurt anymore.” 

“That's it?” 

“That's it,” said Suicide, leading Cancer out of the Whispertorium and to a door at the very end of a hallway. He took out a key attached to a small voodoo doll and opened it.  As he walked into his room, he sat Malice in a chair and began packing his things.

“Oh,” said Cancer. He followed him inside, closing the door behind him, and sat on a high backed chair in the corner while Suicide gathered his belongings. He crossed his legs and looked around the room. It had been about a month since they had met but the circumstances of their first meeting saddened him so he pushed that memory aside for now and concentrated on his surroundings. He had never been in his room before. This was a good opportunity to learn more about him. Everyone, except Cancer, Time, and Ritualized couples, had roommates. Suicide was no exception so he looked only at Suicide's half of the room. His bed was a simple twin size bed. It was covered in a black comforter decorated with pictures of guns and deep red blood spatter. At the head of it sat a teddy bear that had been clumsily sewn together. It was the one that Fever had ripped apart. It's name was Misery. Cancer was saddened and touched to see the effort put into making the bear whole again. Suicide had obviously tried so hard to make it better. He looked up at the posters above his bed. There were three of them. The one on the left had a picture of a girl on it who had written the words, “Who will love me?” on a wall in her own blood and the one on the right had a picture of a boy sitting alone on the ground in the rain but was the one in the middle that made him laugh and it was, by far, the largest poster of all. It was a picture, not a drawing like the others but an actual picture, of a large group of baby pandas. 

“What?” asked Suicide, hearing Cancer's laughter and turning. 

“That,” said Cancer, still laughing, “is a lot of pandas.” 

“Yep! There are 18 of them! I counted them all because they should all be counted,” he said proudly. 

“Did you now?” 

“Uh-huh. They're babies.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yep! Can you imagine how much fun it must have been to be there when they took this picture?” he asked Cancer as he stared at his poster with glowing eyes. “Eighteen baby pandas, Gerard! Eighteen! It must have been so nice playing with them all.  I want to see a panda in person some day.  In real life!” He was beaming. “Aren't they all so cute?” 

“They certainly are,” said Cancer. He had never seen Suicide so happy before. He was glad to see it. He sat there watching his boyfriend look at pandas. He would have given anything to see him this happy all the time. He would have given anything to be the one to make him this happy even once. 

“Pandas are wonderful,” said Suicide dreamily. He then turned and went back to his packing and Cancer watched his smile ebb away as he said, “I like animals so much more than people.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, because people can scheme. They lie and they're mean a lot just to be mean. I don't understand it. But animals, well, they're never mean to be mean. If they do something, you can't say you didn't know they would do it because animals act on instinct and animals have a set way they behave. They can't lie or plot against you. They're transparent and pure, I think.” 

“Perhaps so,” said Cancer. He watched Suicide piling his clothes into his suitcase and cringed inwardly at the thought of how wrinkled they would be once he removed them. His gaze soon traveled from the suitcase to the boy. He looked at him carefully. He was beautiful. Gorgeous, really. The most perfect thing that he had ever seen. Even his imperfections were perfect. He longed to tell him how he felt. To tell him that he was in love with him and to hope that Suicide would respond in kind. To have the one you loved love you in return must be the greatest of all things. He hoped that he would know such a feeling someday. He had never met anyone he deemed worthy of his time and never cared to until now. Now... 

Now he sat back in the chair gazing at his boyfriend and thinking thoughts that he had never had need to think before. He thought about the couples at work. The real couples. Not the ones who merely used each other for pleasure and comfort and company. Those couples disgusted him. He suspected Delusion and Ego were one such couple. 

He thought about the ones he considered real couples. Many of them had been together for as long as he could remember. Some of them had even undergone the Ritual. He didn't know much about the Ritual except that it was supposed to bond 2 people together forever but it was also possible to undo. He didn't know anyone who had ever gotten the Ritual undone but he had heard it was possible. It seemed wrong to do such a thing though. Like not keeping a promise or quitting something. Both ideas were unacceptable to him. He wondered what the Ritual entailed. Was it painful? Was it joyous? Was it even worth it? He was in the middle of these thoughts when he saw Suicide staring at him, looking frightened. 

“What is wrong?” 

“I asked you if you hated me now,” said Suicide. 

“What?  Why would I hate you?” 

“Because I told you what I said in the Whispertorium. I've been wondering if you were mad at me ever since I told you but I was scared of your answer so I didn't ask.” 

Cancer sighed. “Why would I be mad at you for doing your job? You do it well. It is what you are supposed to do.” 

“People die because of me,” said Suicide sadly. 

“And people die because of me. So? You know why all of the mortals must eventually be extinguished, don't you?” 

“Yes.  I just don't like being the one to end them.  I wish I could stop.” 

“Do not talk like that. You make it sound as if you wish to joins the ranks of the eradicated,” he said. Suicide was silent. “You do not wish to do that, do you?” 

“It doesn't matter what I want. Mortals are the only ones who can eradicate me and that'll never happen.” 

“No. No, it will not. And even if they eradicated you tomorrow, you have already accumulated so many lives that you will be a very long time among us. You could even rise from dormancy if you were strong enough. We are immortal. The stronger ones among us anyway. The ones like you and I. Only one thing can kill us and that will not happen. It has been outlawed and the methods of doing it have been lost.” 

“You're talking about the Cure, right?” 

“Where did you hear about the Cure?” Cancer asked, sitting up in his chair. 

“I heard some people talking about it. They say it's just a rumor.” 

“And you? What do you say? What is your opinion on it?” 

“I... I don't know. I never really thought about it. I just overheard a conversation. No one talks to me so I don't say anything. Is it... is it real?” he asked. 

“Yes, Billy. It is real. It is real, it is frightening, and it is better off lost. Do not speak of it to anyone, do you understand me?” 

“Okay. I won't. I promise.” 

“Do you really promise? If you make a promise, I expect you to keep it.” 

“I really promise,” said Suicide. 

“Very well,” Cancer responded. He was shocked to hear that people still spoke of the Cure. There hadn't been a Cure since, well, he couldn't remember when. Still, he was glad that he and Suicide had had this conversation. He would have to keep it in the back of his mind and deal with the talk going around once he had less pressing matters in front of him. He relaxed a little when he noticed Suicide had gone back to shoving mismatched socks into his suitcase. 

He wanted him. 

“Come here for a moment, Billy.” 

“Yes?” he asked, obeying immediately. “Did I do something wrong?” 

“No. No, beautiful. You did nothing wrong,” said Cancer as he pulled him into his lap. “I just wanted you here with me.” 

“Oh. Okay. I... I like being with you,” he said, smiling shyly. 

“Do you?” he asked, grabbing him by the chin and lifting his head so that he was forced to look him in the eyes. Suicide nodded and tried to look away but Cancer held him fast. He kissed him on the mouth, first softly then a bit harder. He heard him make a small sound and felt him wrap his arms around his neck. Cancer held him closer, moving one arm to his waist, and lightly bit his boyfriend's bottom lip, forcing him to open his mouth. Their tongues touched and he became dizzy. He felt fingers scratch at his neck and he knew that Suicide had also experienced something special. He had heard about this type of kissing.  He had even seen it in the Department of Debauchery, but he had never done it. It was wonderful. He pressed his tongue deeper into Suicide's mouth and he responded by sucking gently on it. His stomach exploded with butterflies and when he heard a small moan escape the boy in his arms, he knew he wasn't alone in his feeling. He felt himself stiffen and thought of throwing his boyfriend on the bed and taking him right there and then. He thought of Time, of being spied upon by Ravages, and of the fact that his boyfriend had a roommate and decided against it. Time would love to catch him in the act while he was on the clock. There was another reason though. One much more important to him and that was that he wanted their second time together to be more special than their first and more enjoyable and comfortable for Suicide. Cancer had been the only one to see the act through to completion and he felt badly about it. He wanted to show him that not everything was painful. Neither of them were prepared for what had happened the first time but next time, he would be. The more liberal departments may be able to help. He broke their kiss, slowly and reluctantly, and said, “We should stop.” 

“What did I do wrong?” 

“Nothing, beautiful You did everything right. I just do not think that this is the proper arena given that anyone can walk in on us and given that I was beginning to lose control of myself. I do not wish to be caught with my pants down.” 

“Ooh! That would be so embarrassing!” Suicide said, turning red at the mere thought of it. 

“Yes. Yes, it would be,” he agreed as he looked around the room. “You are done packing?” 

“Eh... kinda,” he said sheepishly. 

“What else is left? Your suitcase is zipped, your bed is stripped, Malice appears ready to leave,” he smiled. “What else is there?” 

“I can't reach my posters,” he said, sitting on Cancer's lap and watching his feet swing in the air. 

“Well,” said Cancer melodramatically, “We certainly cannot leave without your pandas, young Suicide!” 

They both laughed as Cancer stood and began removing the tacks from the wall. 

Suicide left his room with no regrets, no sense of homesickness, and no happy memories. Living in the Mental Skills dorm was not easy and he was happy to be done with it. As they walked down a long corridor, Cancer carrying his suitcase and Suicide carrying only Malice and his posters, he noticed that his boyfriend appeared to be thinking. 

“Um... is everything okay?” he asked. 

“Yes. Billy, tell me.  Do you know which room Dementia lives in?” 

“Yep.”  Of course he knew which room Dementia lived in. His roommate was Schizophrenia which meant it was, in turns, both the loudest room and the quietest one. 

“Is it far? Please take me there,” he said, hoping that his hunch was correct. 

“Okay.  It's not far.” He led Cancer to the end of the hall, took a left, a right, and walked to the third door. 

“This is his room?” 

Suicide nodded. 

“Very well,” said Cancer. He knocked lightly. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Silence. He put his hand on the knob and, feeling it turn in his hand, smiled. Looking down at Suicide, he said, “I had hoped he had forgotten to lock it,” and walked in. 

He looked around the room and gasped. It was a mess. He had never seen anything so horrendous. Posters hung either half tacked to the wall or ripped in two. One of the twin size beds had no sheets while the other was propped up only at the foot of the mattress. The suitcase fell from his hands in shock. He couldn't understand how anyone could live, much less sleep, like this. There was a stain on the ceiling that appeared to have been a plate of spaghetti in a previous life and the walls were starting to lose their paint. 

“Woah,” said Suicide. 

“Woah, indeed,” agreed Cancer. He walked over to the bed that had no sheets and noticed that on the walls above it, something had been written. The print was small. Tiny, even. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out a monogrammed case which contained his eyeglasses and, taking them out, cleaned the lenses. 

“I didn't know you wore glasses,” said Suicide. 

“Well, I do not wear them very much,” Cancer replied, putting them on. “I dislike the way I look in them and I really only need them on rare occasions.” They were small and rectangular, rimmed in a thin black frame. 

“I think you look good in them,” smiled Suicide. He looked down at the ground and blushed. 

“Thank you, Billy,” he said, surprised. “Perhaps... perhaps I shall wear them for you more often.” 

“'kay,” he said, giggling and twisting his body from side to side while hugging Malice. 

Cancer smiled at him and returned to the wall. Even with his glasses, he still had to squint to read it. The print itself was legible. Unusually so. It was the size that made it difficult to make out. He leaned closer and read out loud: 

“To err is human, to love divine. The small one is always losing his mind. 

In hidden places, behind many faces, 

Eggs, milk, bread, candy.” 

“What the?” 

“Dementia likes candy,” said Suicide. 

“That is not what I was talking about,” said Cancer, with an eyebrow raised. 

“Oh.” 

Cancer looked around some more and, spying a deep orange bottle on the table near the bare mattress, picked it up. The label read:. “Frank Austen " Suppression " 500 mg " Take 3 daily and as needed.” It was filled with tiny white pills. 

“What is Dementia's name, Billy?” 

“His real name? Frank something, I think.” 

“Well, then. It looks like we got what we came for,” said Cancer. He slipped the bottle into his pocket, picked up the suitcase, and together, they left the room and headed for the exit to the Department of Mental Skills. 

Suicide smiled. He was happy because he noticed that Cancer still wore his glasses.