psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

Luckily, once Phalanx stops moving, they're the most unobtrusive body there can possibly be. Even their weird, semi-haunted aura settles down when it's time to burrow and hide.

A warm body snuggles up close behind Vincent and just turns into happy, comfy, dead weight. Like a big ragdoll.

And Vincent, despite his indecipherable grumbling about being snuggled up to, disappears into peaceful, deep breathing almost as quickly as the whole interruption had started. Robin waits a couple of moments, fending off the psychological chill still crawling down his neck just long enough to be completely, resoundingly sure.

And then he crawls over to Vincent's other side, slipping in close and under the blankets with nary a disturbance. Vincent even moves his arm for Robing to get in.

The difference is like night and day. With someone at his back, the pangs of anxiety winding out of Robin vanish and are quickly replaced with a heavy cloud of sleep. No more nightmares, hopefully, for the rest of the subterranean night.

Robin can spend the rest of the night without being crushed by darkness, and Vincent can enjoy the claustrophobic warmth of two bodies (and an extra blanket) penning him in on either side. Phalanx even manages to defy the odds and spend a handful more hours in peace, before their luck finally runs out.

Although, Phalanx's bedmates probably count as the unlucky ones, as Phalanx themself sleeps through most of their own restlessness.

When the quiet finally ends, it's only a few sounds at a time--only some of them words--and it's quiet. In the early morning, still an hour or so before the grid wakes up again, Phalanx starts mumbling. And then they start moving. Legs stretch out, an arm kicks a minute or so after that, and some question gets asked into a muffling mound of blankets.

Robin has not followed any kind of sane sleep schedule for a long time, but Vincent is an early riser. He's also much quicker to rise than his immortal friend, dragged to awareness as someone wiggles and shoves right behind him.

He pulls one of his arms up, intent on reaching around and telling his friend to shut up and stop kicking--but he stops when his hand hits what is clearly a warm body in front of him. He knows it's Robin, just from quickly patting his back and his stupid hair--so who in all of the Kingdoms of the Gods is behind him?

He sits up, suddenly, dragging some of the blankets with him. He squints down, even though it doesn't help him see any better than closing his eyes would.

"--What the fuck?"

There's still a foreign blanket partially wadded up under the covers, and it rolls around as the comfy nest is pulled apart from around the intruder.

"I did." Phalanx paws the blanket back so that their weird, delicate voice can find open air, and they blink slowly up at the ceiling, but they can't actually be considered awake yet. "--I did not."

"Huh?" Vincent says, stupidly. "What... the fuck..."

Phalanx might wake up a little faster as Vincent starts to feel around for their face, scooting away from stray limbs only to bump into the still-sleeping corpse of a person behind him.

"You're... What are you doing in here?" He twists around, towards Robin, "What are either of you doing in here? How did you..."

"We had to dig out...?" Phalanx offers--which would have made sense to Robin, but poor Vincent will just have to fend for himself. And the ghosts still sound confused and half-asleep, so it probably means nothing.

They're starting to catch on to one fact, though. The message that they are currently somewhere that they're not supposed to be is at least beginning to get through, so Phalanx continues to roll away. Scooting back from Vincent, they head for the edge of the bed so they can go... somewhere else.

"What?"

He's starting to see what's happened here--duped again, and this time Robin used an innocent bystander to get away with it! Is there no low that the immortal bastard would not sink to? But that doesn't explain...

"Why are you dressed?" He asks Robin, feeling around... But Phalanx's quiet escape is quickly halted when a giant hand reaches over and deftly grabs the back of their exoskeletal mound of blankets. He tugs them backwards, anchoring them to the spot.

"Oh no you don't." And then he turns his gigantic torso around enough to actually talk at Robin, shaking him in the shoulder. "Wake up, asshole! What the fuck are you doing in here?"

Phalanx makes a pathetic sound when they're snagged--half surprised yelp and half guilty whine--but they stay put without a struggle after that.

Waking up is difficult, but making sense is an even more daunting task right now. Whether they're trying to speak to someone in the room, or it's just a symptom of Phalanx being Phalanx, they start making words.

"At home, not in a home... at home... not home...home--"

"Hey, hey, hey..." Vincent starts back at Phalanx, warning at first, but quickly easing off his authoritative tone as he realizes all this yelling is probably just winding them up more. "Hey, stop that. You're okay, kid."

After a second, he hesitantly tries, "Kids?"

But that sounds stupid, and he regrets it almost instantly. Meanwhile, Robin finally makes noises that resemble awareness, stretching one of his arms out and grumbling some question about what time it is.

"Some... some of them."

It seems to be more-or-less in response to Vincent, and Phalanx does stop winding up and uselessly spinning their mental gears. So, it's probably an answer? Vincent has their attention now, at the very least. They quiet right down.

And then, maybe because he also seems to be trying to keep them from wandering off... Phalanx starts climbing back into bed.

"Uh, okay." Vincent says. "Uh, sure. Yeah. Okay."

That one's on him, he supposes. He shoves Robin (none too friendly-like) over so that he'll have more room, and Phalanx can crawl back uninterrupted.

Robin, who has just been shoved, finally groans, "All right, all right. What're we yelling about?"

"Why the fuck are you in my room?" Vincent asks him, letting go of Phalanx. "This guy's saying something about digging or some shit?"

Unbeknownst to either of the other parties involved, Phalanx nods to confirm Vincent's statement. And then they shuffle back onto the bed, blanket and all, sidling up as close as Vincent will allow. Just going back to the place they'd been before--though, they do have the decency to seem hesitant about it, at least.

Now that he's conscious, Vincent blocks off at least part of himself by plunking his hand down on the mattress. Phalanx would have to somehow get through the man's tree-trunk of an arm to sidle up to his side. His legs, though, those are forfeit. You gotta win some to lose some.

"...Huh," Robin says, also sitting up, ruffling his hair back into place. He also straightens out his shirt, which had become disheveled with the events of the night. "I must have had a bad dream."

"What do you mean, you must have?" Indignant, Vincent asks, "The fuck are you saying? The fuck are any of you saying?"

"Mm," Robin ignores him, "Hey, where did Phalanx go?"

He leans over to look around the giant man in front of him, smiling a little when he spots that familiar white hair, "Ah, good morning."

Edited 2018-04-13 05:30 (UTC)

"Morning-morning," Phalanx answers in the same pleasant tone, while lumping up around Vincent's arm like a magnetic puddle. Phalanx's legs, of course, naturally gravitate toward Vincent's unprotected ones as well.

"Look, I told you..." The taller man sighs heavily, not charmed by their cute good-morning exchange, or Phalanx's puddling closer to him despite his arm in the way. "Stop sneaking in here. It's creepy, man. And I don't want you bringing your friends in either, you got that?"

"Phalanx, what do you say we go and find some breakfast?" Robin asks cheerily, clearly ignoring Vincent, "We can hit the town once the grid goes up."

"You're not listening to me," Vincent states, though it does no good. Robin pats Vincent on the shoulder, smiling wide.

"You can come too! Don't worry."

"I'm not..."

"It'll be fun!"

"It'll be--breakfast!"

The tone is a spot-on mimic of Robin's, even if the words are a little off. Phalanx is grinning where they're bundled up and still happily squirming, as if there is an intentional game being played back and forth around Vincent.

Which, there sort of is, but one of the participants has a very incomplete understanding of it. Phalanx knows enough to understand that they're having fun with Robin, and may even grasp the fact that it's at Vincent's expense, but would not be able to explain why or how.

It's fine, though. At least the appearance of fun is being had.

He just can't win. It's par for the course for Vincent, but he still reaches out a giant hand to shove Robin's face out of the way. Robin goes tipping with a laugh, toppling over onto the bed and squirming out from the rest of the covers.

"Let's go!" He suggests as he passes by Phalanx, finally righting himself and stepping out of bed. Vincent is left confused and unsettled, shaking his head.

"I'm going back to sleep," he insists, hoping that Phalanx will take the cue to follow their self-proclaimed babysitter around.

Phalanx has latched onto Robin's demeanor and still doesn't really remember themself, so they do slink out of bed to mindlessly follow after him. They also drag along that blanket that doesn't originally belong there, continuing to hang onto the tangled mass of it, so Vincent can reclaim that space too.

The kids are awake and finally running off to leave him in peace.

"We'll be back!" Robin calls behind himself, grabbing his shoes before exiting. Vincent grumbles something in response... and the both of them can hear him thwump back down into the blankets before long.

The demigod stops to sit on the couch, put his shoes on, and assess the day--"I think we'll take you upstairs to get some clothes, first, and then take a look around the market for something to eat. The grid will come back on by the time we're up there."

Lacing his boots, he glances over at Phalanx, "You'll be all right walking around with bare feet?"

Phalanx amiably wanders and looks around as if this room is brand new to them, while Robin gets himself together. The blanket had been more like a lump than a cape when it had been pulled from the bed, so it's still kind of all balled up as Phalanx absently pulls it across their shoulders like a shawl.

They look over and follow Robin's attention down to their own feet at the question, immediately confused about it.

"I... walk around...?"

Though, at least Phalanx sounds confused about maybe why Robin is asking, and not about the simple fact that they have feet.

The tone seems to be received... Robin shrugs, standing up again.

"Then you'll be fine. Another question for you--" He then heads to the front door, holding it open, gesturing for Phalanx to exit into the hallway ahead of him. "Do you have any favorite colors?"

He's already predicting what the answers will be, of course.

Phalanx obligingly steps through the door... and keeps on wandering while they ponder the question.

"Favorite is... blue." Quite definitive. And then, just as definitive-- "Red. I like pink. Mm... white."

Uh-huh. Robin follows Phalanx out the door, closing it quietly behind them. He imagines that, if he let them, Phalanx would name just about every color there is to like. He supposes it will make shopping easy, at the very least. Someone in there will like whatever he gets for them.

"Good to know," he cuts them off somewhere, just so that they don't keep listing things, "I think we'll have fun looking around."

He leads them out of the building, out into the street. The shadows are long and dim down here, and the carved streets are fairly empty--save for a couple of strange "early risers" and people heading on the long road to working far above. The grid still isn't due to come on for another half-hour or so.

"So, Phalanx, I'm also curious..." He picks bits of his own bangs back into place while he walks, since he left without doing his hair properly, "What do you think of Vincent?"

Out here, Phalanx is a lot like how Robin had first found them--drifting along like they don't quite realize that they are fully a part of this plane, dragging a cloud of energy with them that shivers and reverberates somewhere underneath the air. Except, with how asleep and empty the avenue is at this hour, it has room to spread out. With all this stillness, their aura almost chatters amongst itself.

The question manages to still and focus them a little bit, but the rest is still wandering.

"--Think of Vincent. Of Vincent... we think of Vincent."

Being out and about in just a dress-sized shirt and tangled blanket is much less than Phalanx is used to, so they absently start straightening the blanket into more of a true shawl-shape. Fashioning a hood out of the tangled mass is the hardest part, but they're working on it.

"...Big, and he's a tree. A big one."

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