psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

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?"

Robin is effectively free to untangle all he wants while Phalanx is suddenly caught by Vincent's glass gaze. With the way their eyes widen a bit, it seems like they've kept the whole blind thing in mind long enough to be surprised when Vincent suddenly looks their way.

"Mm... names. Probably. But I don't remember them."

It's a more thorough answer than when Robin had asked. All that focusing really is paying off, apparently.

"I only remember Phalanx. Don't think it's a name."

"Huh..."

Despite his earlier confusion, Vincent seems to take this answer fairly well, even nodding a little as he appears to mull something over... The name sounds like a familiar term, something he heard during his brief stint as a soldier, but the exact definition eludes him as he stands in the doorway of his own bathroom.

Robin silently continues his good work, untangling something down the length of Phalanx's arm. If Vincent can get anything out of their new friend, it's worth not interrupting. That's why Robin brought him here, after all.

Eventually, Vincent shrugs. "Well, do you and all your people with names want anything to eat?"

"Eat, umm..."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it looks like it's going to take some thought for this mob of spirits to pay enough attention to their fleshy human shell to be able to gauge something like hunger. Phalanx looks around at nothing while they consider the idea.

And in the meantime, something distracting happens. One of the strips of fabric that Robin unwinds had apparently been folded in half for a reason, forming a makeshift pocket in Phalanx's sleeve. Robin frees most of his new friend's arm, but it causes a sprinkle of tiny objects to suddenly clatter onto the bathroom floor, scattering all over the tile. Most of it seems to be junk--caps and rice and little bones--but one of the trinkets does seem to be a familiar little pin from the marketplace.

The moment something hits the ground, Vincent startles and takes a couple of steps out of the room. Robin also looks surprised, but his inclination is to freeze while a bunch of little things go skittering all over the floor.

"Oops," he says, "Guess that was full."

"Full of what...?" Vincent asks, slowly straightening.

"...Stuff," is Robin's reply. "Ah..."

He bends down, picks up a couple of little bones and a bottle cap and a die that had bounced off the tub.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you were full of... things."

And now he's holding a few of them, and realizes he's not sure what to do with them. Honestly, some of this looks like trash... Maybe he'll put it in a pile for later?

"Full of things," Phalanx echoes wonderingly, and they follow Robin in stooping down to get a better look at the junk on the floor. While Robin picks up the bits by the tub, Phalanx goes the other direction--drawn to the little metal pin the same way they had been in the market earlier.

And after spending a second or two picking at it with the edge of a dirty fingernail... Phalanx reaches into the remaining folds of shirts and sleeves, and the pin disappears.

Robin sets his things down and scoots a couple of other things over with his foot. He looks up just in time to catch Phalanx putting something back in his clothes--the exact opposite of what they're supposed to be doing.

"No, that's..." He stops, gives up. Sighs a little. "Okay. We'll just pick up where we left off, I guess."

Vincent hesitantly comes back towards the door, making extra sure not to step on anything on his way, while Robin ignores the mess and decides he might as well keep pulling things off of Phalanx and see what else falls out of him.

There's just enough time to wonder if that's the only thing that Phalanx has stashed away, before another pocket is uncovered. It's the other arm this time, hidden in a wrap higher up on Phalanx's arm than the other one had been, and this one is half full of small-but-heavy metallic objects and half things that are so light they flutter to the floor. A shiny candy wrapper, part of a dead beetle, and a small square of paper that is so worn it almost feels like fabric.

"Oops!" Phalanx announces, mostly for Vincent's benefit, as this latest round of junk hits the floor.

"Oookay," Vincent responds, having only startling a little bit that time. "What is happening."

"They're just..." Robin catches that piece of paper as it flutters to the ground, "Phalanx, what is all of this stuff?"

"Things..." which is the obvious answer, the one that Robin himself had called it, but Phalanx is quite aware of how poor of a response it is. After a fidgety tilt of their head, they try again.

"Things that, mm..." Phalanx reaches into the sleeve where the latest junk had fallen from, fishes around to see if there's anything left, and comes back with a rusty metal bolt. "Shine... and roll, or click. Quick. Pick. I just... pick them up."

"Yes..." After a moment of pause, he plucks a familiar beer tab off from where it was hanging off of Phalanx's side. "...You do. Like a little magpie."

He seems almost fascinated, actually. He's a collector too, but he keeps all of his things hidden away in his nest, where no one will ever see them. He suddenly wonders how old Phalanx is, something that had not occurred to him to wonder before.

"...Anything that anyone's gonna be mad about missing?" Vincent asks the important question, crossing his arms and frowning again.

Does a body full of ghosts age and grow old? Or does it keep going, slowly wrapping itself up, adding, picking up and saving pieces of everywhere it's been?

Phalanx frowns momentarily. "The woman..." And then looks to Robin expectantly after trailing off, since he'd been there to see it and undoubtedly understands what had happened more than Phalanx themself does.

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