psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

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.

"Huh?" Robin is pulled out of his thoughts of birds, blinking back into the conversation. "Oh, that woman from this morning?"

He ends up tossing the tab over his shoulder. It hits the wall uselessly. "Nah, she won't be a problem."

"...that sounds like it could be a problem," Vincent warns.

"What's going to be a problem is if I can't get this guy out of all of this clothing and into the bath before it gets cold." Effectively blowing off any concern about earlier, Robin goes back to the task in front of him. "We'll just have to sweep up later."

With most of Phalanx's arm wrappings undone, getting at the rest is a little easier. Robin can start puzzling out the shirt layers, and discover all of the pockets therein. Slowly, collarbone, elbows, forearms--Phalanx gains more discernible human shapes.

The creature tolerates the unwrapping fairly well... until skin really starts to show. It's only the little signs of discomfort and tension, but they're there.

After a long silence from all three of them, Vincent suddenly speaks again.

"You doing okay?"

He says this to Phalanx, turning his face once more in their general direction. Robin continues his work, picking at a very tight knot holding something up on their forearm, purposefully ignoring the signs of discomfort.

"Okay. Doing okay," Phalanx murmurs, but the tension is noticeable in their voice now. The arm that has been the most freed is curled up snug against their torso, and the arm that Robin is currently working on is getting fidgety, now that they're thinking about their own state of being. Dirty fingers twitch and curl, but Phalanx continues to try and keep the rest of the arm still so Robin's work isn't disturbed.

"I feel... okay. That's right. Just okay."

"Just okay, huh."

See, the thing about Vincent is that he has never been considered a smart man. Very little has ever been expected of him, which is both inherently disappointing and immeasurably freeing. He can do the shit that no one else is stupid enough to do, like be pointlessly nice to people without expecting them to give him anything in return, or even understand why he's being nice.

He steps away from the doorway while Robin finally undoes a the tricky knot and moves on to something else. When Vincent comes back, he's holding an old plaid-patterned blanket, which he hesitantly brings into the room.

The hesitation comes entirely from the floor situation--he has to shuffle his feet awkwardly to avoid stepping on anything, since the last thing he needs is a bunch of little glass (or metal, or plastic?) shards in his socks.

Once he's near them, he slowly drapes the blanket over Phalanx's shoulders--partly because he can't actually see what he's doing, and partly because he is trying his very hardest not to be a large, startling monster-man.

"There," he says with finality, before nudging Robin blindly in the shoulder and saying specifically to his friend, "You don't gotta be weird about it."

Robin pauses long enough to shoot Vincent some sort of meaningful, cryptic, unhappy look--but soon enough he's back to unwrapping in silence, now doubly-intent on finishing.

Edited 2017-10-11 20:54 (UTC)

Phalanx was okay, but goodness that blanket is not going to be turned away. Even with how vaguely-frightening Vincent is, Phalanx stands bravely still and gathers that blanket close as it's draped around.

Vincent's good work earns a sigh of relief. The blanket covers bare shoulders while still being open enough for Robin to finish his work.

"And clean up your fucking mess," is the other thing Vincent mumbles at Robin as he turns to make his way carefully back out of the room. "I'm gonna eat, before it gets cold."

"Yeah," Robin answers noncommittally. A little more fidgeting, though, and his patience runs out. When a knot refuses to loosen, he drops his hands to his sides with a sigh.

"Okay, fine. Scissors it is."

And just like that, he tiptoes back through the scattered things all over the ground to pick up the large pair of scissors that had been left on the ground.

With the new blanket-shawl, Phalanx seems generally more settled about things. The idea of scissors aren't quite so scary anymore, especially since they've already watched most of their raggedy armor be disassembled through other means. Phalanx is pretty sure those scary-looking things are just for cutting non-people things, so...

And while Robin is distracted for those few seconds, Phalanx has time to be free of all that scrutiny and get a look down at themselves. When was the last time they had seen bare skin at all? For all that Robin knows (and Phalanx remembers) the creature could have been created already enshrouded.

When Robin turns back from fetching the scissors, Phalanx is looking down and poking at a marble on the ground with dirty, bare toes, watching it roll across the tile.

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