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"His name is Mike."
Pluey sticks his tongue out at Battat in response, and holds his yarn ball close. He speaks with a flat note, and Battat can feel his face flushing in frustration.
"No! Your name is Pluey! His name is Mike!" He gestures vaguely at Pluey, at his perfectly tailored costume and immaculate bowtie. The outfit he designed, and Battat hated, and still compromised on. "You can call yourself literally anything you want to when you're not Mike. Mike's name is Mike!"
A drawn out note, and Pluey rolls over to face away from him.
Battat can feel himself short circuiting. "Well why don't they?! Just tell them to! It's that simple!"
"Why are yous yellin?" Jongler peers out of their room with a sigh. "You's supposed'ta be in bed by now. Hi, Plue."
Pluey blows them a kiss. Battat snatches it out of the air and throws it on the ground.
"Pluey here just got back. And has decided, independently, that when he's Mike, he's going to keep being called Pluey." Battat grits his teeth.
"Oh. Well, Mister Tenna does use nicknames for a lot of da people he meets, dat's not too unusual is it?" Jongler offers, ever the mediator, the ceaser of conflict. "I knows shadowguys ain't got names in da traditional sense..."
"Wh- yes they do!" Battat argues. "Everyone gets a name at some point!"
Pluey pauses. He sits up, abandoning his yarn ball, and faces Battat with a slow croon.
"Do dey?" Jongler asks at the same time.
Battat's scowl falters for a moment. He...doesn't know. "They must." He says sharply, refusing to admit ignorance. "It's just that no one bothers using them if they don't like talking to someone enough to want to address them directly."
Pluey's ears flick back and he shakes his head, pointing at Battat and raising his voice.
"Okay, a little uncalled for, buddy-" Jongler says quickly.
"I've had a name my whole life!"
Pluey flares and shakes his head again. He repeats the same four notes.
"That's not true!" Battat snaps, and Jongler scruffs him by the cape before he can get his hands on Pluey, who's apparently not done bringing up inconvenient truths and unusual questions.
"Th-this isn't about us!" Battat snaps. "This is about you trying to rename Mike!"
"Oh, Zappers ain't got names." Jongler says, ignoring the look Battat sends them. "We's just call each other by rank. We stays real private about it, until we picks somethin we like, and until we trust someone enough to share it."
Battat is going to fucking lose it. Not because he wants to, or because he likes when the three of them have issues, of course. It's just...complicated. Shadowguys have names that can't be pronounced by other darkners, so they pick ones more hard syllable-friendly. Zappers name themselves. Pippins give each other names that fit, and then tend to hold onto them for the rest of their lives. Battat has been through several.
"Do Pippinses have names?" Jongler wonders out loud. "You said yous always had one, but I remember when you first got here, and wouldn't tell nobody."
"I told you, the plural is still- ....you remember that?" Battat can feel his heart drop into his stomach. That's not what happened.
"Sure." Jongler nods, and reads the dropping of Battat's shoulders as the end of the argument. They set him down gently, and smooth his cape and collar back down. "And da others would call you Mippins. It was real cute da way you'd go all green and swear at dem." They huff out a laugh. "But I never heard you correct dem."
"I tried." It comes out like a whisper.
"Come on, Misprint! Let's play blackjack!"
"That is not my name!" He snaps, indignant. He's been here a day and he's already making friends. Great. "It's-"
"Yeah Chip, you can't call someone a misprint, that's so rude. Pick something else. And not Greenie, that's a mouthful."
"Oh for- fine, Mippins then. That's a good name, right?"
He flushes, embarrassed and angry. "N-no! No, I- I mean I have a name already! You can just call-"
"Not in TV World, though!" The nicer Pippins grins at him. "And we gotta have a name to cheer if you lose any games!"
"Or curse, if you win..."
"Wh- I'm not changing it!" He can't remember the last time he spent time with another Pippins, much less in a group. Is this normal? To just be someone else because someone expects you to? It sounds absurd. He's Ruby. "I'm-"
"Zapper incoming! Everyone cheese it!"
They all scramble away, but Ruby doesn't know what that means. Zappers are security, and he hasn't done anything wrong. It doesn't keep him from being hoisted up by the back of his cape, and it sure doesn't stop irritating memories from flooding back.
"New guy causin trouble, huh?" She sniffs. "Who are ya?"
This is achingly familiar. "I didn't do anything!" He tries.
"Uh-huh. I ain't ever heard that before." She drops him, and he barely manages to keep his head still. "Find some real work to do, else yer employment here's gonna be real short and real difficult."
He glares up at her and scrambles to his feet. "How about you stop interrupting me, then!" Ruby is pushing her when he shouldn't be, but it's not- she's not making it easy for him to back off.
The Zapper looms over him. "How's about you give me yer name so's I can write ya up." She takes out a notepad.
His furious blush deepens. His King would be ashamed. "Ruby." He says finally.
"Uh-huh. Look, if you's gonna be that way, I'll drop you in da clink, and you can spend some time in dice jail for bein insbordinate."
"That's my name!"
"Sure, little green...mold. Keep pushin me, wise guy, see what happens." She moves like she's going to grab him again, and he holds his hands up.
"Fine! Fine, I'm sorry!" He grits his teeth so hard his jaw aches. "I- I'm...Mippins."
Fine. If no one will believe him, or even hear him out, then he'll just- he'll keep it to himself. The name given to him by his King is just for him anyway. There's no reason anyone as unimportant as television studio workers should get to call him that.
It just makes it all the more special, and his bond to his King all the stronger, even when they're apart.
The music draws him back from thought, and Battat looks up. "Huh?"
Jongler is kneeling in front of him. Beside them, Pluey clings to their arm and mumble-sings apologies.
"Batts?"
He frowns, and takes half a step back. Pluey looks devastated and Battat is starting to freak out. "What happened? What is your guys' deal?"
Jongler offers out a tissue. "You's cryin, boss."
Battat reaches up and touches his cheek- and then quickly pulls up the front of his cape to hide his face while he wipes his eyes. "No I'm not!" He snaps, and hates himself for letting his voice crack.
Pluey asks him a staccato.
Battat grits his teeth. "No. It's not about that." He smooths his cape down and makes awkward eye contact. "Ignore it, it's just a stress thing. A perfectly normal reaction to external stressors, like work, or annoying roommates."
Jongler shakes their head, but Battat quickly pushes onward before they can start interrogating him.
"Look- Mike is someone important." He starts and stops a few times as he tries to push his emotions aside and make himself make sense. "He's a real guy, whose job we're helping to do until we find him, or find out what happened to him, or until he comes back. He-- he's important."
"You really thinks he's gonna come back?" Jongler asks, and Battat can only shrug.
"We have to hope! I mean, I don't wish ill on the guy, wherever he is." He takes a deep breath. "This isn't- Being Mike means Tenna trusts us. It means we're important. We're special, a-and cherished- and it's not cool to try and replace it- him- with something different!"
Battat wants to do good work. He wants to be known as reliable and trustworthy, but it's not for Mike. It's the only way to get what he really wants. He wants to be treasured. Like he used to be. In TV World, he's another Pippins stereotype: he's a gambler, he's loose, he's a liar and a troublemaker.
There's no king here, but Tenna is the Lord of this darkworld, and that's enough. Tenna gave him this name, whether he knows it or not, and Battat has to live up to it if he's going to get back all the love he's lost.
Pluey's voice pulls him from his thoughts again, and Battat swats his hand out of the air when he snaps his fingers to get his attention.
He tries not to glare directly at Pluey as he listens, but staring at the floor makes him feel like he's being petulant.
Compromise. A compromise. On a missing person's identity. Sure.
He rubs his face with his hands with a sigh. "You know what? Fine. Mike can be Pluey sometimes. But only when you're on duty! You have to set the boundary with Tenna that you're the only Pluey Mike."
The saxophone of Pluey's voice goes up an octave, and stops Battat in his tracks.
We are important. Otherwise Tenna wouldn't try so hard to keep us around.
"What do you mean?"
"He means da employment contracts."
Battat looks at them, genuinely quizzical. "I didn't sign one of those."
Jongler huffs a laugh. "Course you did! I was dere. All da new people that came from da Card Kingdom signed a paper when dey came in. It's da rules."
He thinks for a moment.
"Wh- that sign-in sheet? I didn't get a chance to read anything!" Battat would surely remember that! "That's what he's always going on about?! I- I didn't think that applied to me, he only talks to Mike about it!"
Jongler at least has the decency to hide their laugh this time, but instigator Pluey chirps out loud.
"Sorry, sorry," Jongler puts up a reassuring hand before Battat can actually make the move for Pluey his expression implies he's going to. "Nobody really reads dey contract, boss. Least, not without Tenna gettin all big an' weird about it. Basically all it says is dat we don't leave without expressed permission, and dat we lives in da station."
Battat nods slowly, and steps back again, until his knees touch the couch. He sits down clumsily, and doesn't complain when Pluey and Jongler get into his space. Tenna wants them all to stay. Even if he threatens to dock their pay, and rolls the Pippins.
The tight contracts, the company housing, it's all just talk, meant to keep them around. He wants them. He wants Battat.
Even without his name.