psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

Luckily, Vincent can't see a thing. All he has to focus on is the confusing string of words coming out of the mouth of the person in front of him.

"You... are? You-- Wait, what?"

He was doing okay up until now, but that wasn't what he'd expected to hear--so now he's lost the plot, a bit, and is still trying to figure out what any of that was supposed to mean.

Around the corner, the medicine cabinet slams distinctly shut. Maybe Robin is finally finishing up...

Whoop, Phalanx's voice sounds a little farther away now, as they sit back down properly in the wake of Vincent's slightly-raised voice.

"...What?"

And it's not the 'what' of 'what's wrong with that?' It's the exact sort of 'what' that Vincent has just demanded at them--another bewildered echo.

"...What?"

Because Vincent has nothing to say other than to express more confusion over the apparent lack of clarity here. What does he mean, 'what'? Is that such a weird thing to ask?

"Damn," interjects Robin, now standing in the doorway with his hands stuffed into his pocket, a smirk on his face, "Is there an echo in here, or what?"

At least one of them had to be expecting what comes next. With one word in particular bouncing between all of them like that, Phalanx literally cannot help it.

"...What?"

"Yeah!" Robin grins, not missing a beat, "Like that!"

He plunks an arm down on Vincent's shoulder, leaning on the taller man as if he was a bookcase or a dresser--and to be fair, Vincent himself doesn't do much other than huff in complaint.

"So, are you guys getting introduced, and all that?"

"All that."

Phalanx sounds confident in this fact. Robin even gets a tentatively proud smile from where they're awkwardly bundled up on the edge of the bed.

They tried! Talking and interacting and everything. The effort of all that focus still shows--for whatever reason--in the new color of their features.

"...We are?" says the taller man, turning to look blindly at his friend.

"Ah, yes..." Robin has a much better idea of what's going on, noticing Phalanx's blue eyes and the familiar brown hair peeking out from under the edge of their hood again. Given that Vincent hasn't freaked out about it yet, it's likely that the tall man doesn't have the slightest clue that the change is happening... and that is a very reassuring thing.

So he smiles back at them, fairly proud himself, "Good, you two should be friends."

He barely moves away from Vincent, but reaches a hand out for Phalanx to come take it again all the same, just like they'd been doing before.

"Come on, water's ready."

Robin's proud smile only reinforces Phalanx's confidence. Look how good they've done at interacting and focusing and all of those other things that normal humans do! They even respond right away to Robin's beckon. It takes some clumsy untangling to get themself free and on their feet again, but they're quick to take Robin's hand.

And when it's time for the pair to part ways with their giant friend, Phalanx does another thing that normal humans do, smiling at Vincent-- "Bye!"

"...Okay," Vincent says, as Robin leads them out of the room. And a moment later, belatedly, "...Bye."

But then they're off, even if it is not very far. They step back into the front room and around the corner, into the dim light of a small, tile-covered bathroom. It's not immaculate by any means, between some weird, dark smudges on the walls and the grime collecting along the edges of the room--but Robin uses this bathroom almost as much as Vincent does, so it's not quite as bad as the rest of the house.

The tub seems pretty nice, filled with gently steaming water. No shower curtain, though the rings are still up on the rod.

"Do you want any help getting your clothes off?" Robin turns to ask them, with the casual pleasantness of someone who helped a lot of people take off a lot of clothes in his lifetime.

It's hard to tell when something in the physical world will catch Phalanx's attention or go completely beyond their notice. Often it's the shiny or repeating things that are most of interest--the henges of beer cans as an example--with everything else blending together as one big meaningless backdrop, but the behavior is not always that predictable.

Vincent's bathroom, for example. There shouldn't be anything about this space that is particularly eye-catching, but Phalanx's attention immediately goes exploring, and it's not to the tub or whatever toiletries might be setting out on the counter. For whatever reason, Phalanx apparently finds the walls here fascinating.

Even Robin's question about disrobing isn't enough to distract the creature. Phalanx only murmurs some inarticulate, noncommittal sound in response, and doesn't make a move to begin the whole undressing process.

No one else would have noticed, but Robin has something to hide. He'd thought he'd done a decent enough job, removing his manic words from the walls and cleaning up that old blood splatter off the floor... But now he has to wonder if Phalanx can't see them anyway.

A lot of the odd things that Phalanx says can be chocked up to coincidence, but they have no reason to be looking with interest at something that isn't there--unless they have an inclination of what that nothingness used to be.

"What are you looking at?" He asks, watching Phalanx's face for an answer.

At first, Phalanx doesn't answer. Their wandering attention has found something to focus on--some blank place on the wall that would be of interest to exactly no one in the world besides Robin. And as they focus on something that isn't there anymore, that lovely blue shade in their eyes abruptly drops to black.

Very purposefully, Phalanx reaches out a hand to jab a finger against one certain scrubbed-clean tile, which currently looks exactly like all of the other tiles around it. That sameness is a very recent development, of course.

Eventually, Phalanx does answer, but it's only after they've stared hard at that empty place for a good few seconds.

"Nothing."

Hm. A strange development.

"The absence of something," he clarifies, not looking at the tile that once had the word 'stupid' scribbled on it, over the start of some other thought. He doesn't remember all of the things he's written, but that one was always in easy sight.

But Phalanx isn't reading his every inner thought--not quite--so he takes this chance to start moving things along. No use dwelling, no point in giving him more to look at.

"I did just clean," he admits, reaching over to tug Phalanx's hood away from his head.

The hood is pulled back, Phalanx's eyes are startled back to blue, and everyone in the room is focused (mostly) on the present again.

They look so different as nearly-human. With all that developing color, and normally-sized, solid-looking irises, they don't look so much like some kind of living doll anymore. There's even an interesting sort of texture adding waves to their hair.

And with the way that Phalanx looks at Robin with surprise then, they could be reacting to the sudden removal of their hood, or just finding themselves perplexed to see Robin standing right there at all.

Faced with surprise like that... perhaps he is overreacting. Yeah, they may be able to discern things that they shouldn't, but what are they going to do with it?

It's kind of funny, watching them snap back... So he puts a big smile on his face, waving a little.

"Hi! Is everyone here again?"

Phalanx obediently mimics the grin, though there is a bit of a sheepish quality to it. It's the look of a child getting caught at spacing out during class, and not of some creature returning from gazing inexplicably through the curtain of time.

"Yeah. We are."

"Great."

Well, that settles it. If they don't make a big deal of it, neither will Robin. He picks at Phalanx's clothes again, this time plucking at the front of their shirt.

"Want to get undressed?"

"Mm..."

It's a thoughtful sound, maybe a little confused, as they follow Robin's gaze down to the front of their... outfit. Calling it a "shirt" is rather generous, though there does seem to at least be a shirt in there somewhere, among all the other nonsensical layers of fabric.

There are the cloak layers draped on the outside--almost like a robe, but seeming to only have a proper sleeve on one side, along with simple shrouds of loose fabric--which are all pretty easy to push aside and get to the clothing layers underneath. However, the clothing layers themselves make much less sense. There is an open shirt pulled over other grubby remnants of shirt-like garments, but those are all worn both over and under strips of torn cloth wrapping up Phalanx's arms. And who knows what could be found under all of that...

Really, the more Robin looks at it, the more it kind of looks like someone (probably Phalanx) has been mindlessly adding pieces to this fabric-based puzzle as time has gone on, and maybe never taking them off again. Phalanx has more been tied into a nest of rags than has been dressed in clothing that makes human (or even just functional) sense.

Actually, Robin lifts up part of the multi-layered cloak of fabric himself, looking for somewhere to start. He had assumed that this would be a simple matter of unwrapping, but everywhere he thinks of starting leads into a labyrinth of other clothes.

And after a moment of being visually stumped, he pulls back and takes a look at all of Phalanx's outfit, before turning his head to call out over his shoulder:

"Hey, Vince--grab some scissors while you're out there."

Robin absently scratches his head while Vincent grunts some sort of acknowledgement from where he was already digging around in the kitchen. And then Robin steps in again to start somewhere, trying to get that first layer of coat out from under a layer of scarf, which turns out to be part of a shirt that may or may not be hanging off their shoulders.

Phalanx looks vaguely confused or concerned about this whole thing--especially with the mention of scissors--but they are so far succeeding at being a good, cooperative citizen. For now, they will just observe the proceedings and keep any protest they may have to themself.

The "cloak" is the easiest thing to remove. It's made up of several pieces of robe-like garments and unattached swaths of fabric, but there at least seems to be a chance that this part of Phalanx's getup was intended to be removable. Once the complicated boundary between cloak and the rest of the clothing can be delineated, it's a fairly simple struggle to peel the whole thing off of Phalanx's body in one go.

At least this way, with the heaviest shroud scooped up and lifted away, Robin can get a clear look at the rest of the mess... and can at least confirm that Phalanx is indeed person-shaped under there, with distinct human limbs and a slouched, taller-than-they-seem build. The chances of them being made up of something like a pile of sentient rats are much lower now.

"Ah, well there's a surprise..."

The layers he removes from Phalanx get folded up and draped politely over the nearby sink, until he can almost see some sort of human shape under there, hunched in all the blankets.

"You're a little taller than you look, huh?"

The question is rhetorical, probably, as he feels along the width of their shoulders... Partly to look for any way to peel off the next layers of clothes, but also just to get an idea of what he's working with.

"Scissors?" Vincent appears in the doorway, holding up something with silver handles.

"Yeah, leave 'em by the door."

Vincent obliges, setting them down on the floor. He doesn't really go anywhere after that--he's not looking at anything, because he doesn't have eyes, but he lingers to listen in on what's happening with the person who will (apparently) be staying with them for a while.

"Taller than I look...?"

Once Robin is done feeling their (perfectly normal, respectable) shoulders, Phalanx shrugs them up and down a few times, as if testing to make sure they still work. And as another person shows up, a new item is introduced, the weight of clothing is lightened, Phalanx's attention flits uncomprehendingly around--both trying to keep up with everything going on, and struggling to understand the puzzling concept that Robin has just introduced.

"How?" How can someone be taller than they look?

"Oh, easy."

Robin, being a creature used to interpreting insane amounts of information all at once from any and all planes of existence, is not at all phased by the odd question.

"You normally slouch, and you wear all of these clothes... which makes it hard for people to see what your body looks like. One might assume, from the outside, that you are standing normally when you are really stooped over an inch or two."

Cheerily, he jabs his thumb back towards Vincent. "He slouches, too."

"You leave me out of this," Vincent says from where he is now leaning against the doorway.

"...Oh."

The likelihood that Phalanx follows and understands that explanation is just about equal to the chances that they're just pretending. But either way, Phalanx's attention has been moved, and they are now looking at Vincent. He is the creature's new focal point while Robin goes about whatever the next step of this project is, quietly staring with the impolite openness of a child.

"Mmhm."

The distraction suits Robin just fine, leaving him free to continue peeling away at the layers, wondering how long all of these have been on them, where they got them from...

And Vincent, who can't see anything, continues to stand in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. He's frowning slightly, staring down at nothing along the wood of the door frame... Until he tilts his head up again, as if he'd heard a strange noise, and then turns his head to look directly at Phalanx.

Well, "look" at Phalanx. It's probably just a coincidence that he interrupted their staring.

"Hey, what's your name?"

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