psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

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Skeleton City // PSL

They call it the "Market", and it's always buzzing like a hive. The vast caverns are warmed by the hundreds of bodies all hauling, shouting, pitching, laughing, exchanging things from one hand to another. Even more people stroll up above, their voices lost in the tangle of bridges made of stone and wood and metal. The place is lit by dozens of electric signs, spilling brightwarm colors where the hanging lanterns cannot reach.

There is a lot to look at. One person seems to trade a bolt of rich red cloth for some nails and hinges. One man is trying very hard to convince another that the chicken he is holding is worth at least three bags of grainmeal. And then there is whatever Phalanx is holding, which they most certainly did not trade for, and it most certainly leads to someone reaching out over their stall table and grabbing them harshly by the arm.

"Hey, you little theif!" Says an irate, heavy-set woman, "What do you think you're doing?"

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He's a patient man. He can wait as long as it takes them.

So it's almost a pleasant surprise when they actually do hold onto his wrist; he knows that Phalanx hasn't exactly been keen to snuggle up to him in the past, at least not without Robin being an influence. He reaches for the hand touching his wrist, instinctively resting his large fingers over theirs.

"There you go. Can you tell me what happened?"

He wonders if Phalanx had a bad dream too... Though the chances of both of them having restless dreams at the same time seems pretty slim. If anything, his dream was probably just caused by his brain unconsciously filtering the sounds of Phalanx sobbing, or some other psychological nonsense.

To give them some credit, Phalanx does at least try to answer. They level out their breathing and summon up enough will to make a sound, but it's just a wordless "Nnn--"

They pause as if they're preparing to try again, but when another anguished sob strangles its way out, they give up. Crumpling to the tile again, Phalanx lets whatever was tormenting them take over, though they continue to hang on tight to Vincent's arm.

Vincent doesn't cry much, himself. His mom beat that out of him pretty early, and the rest of the world only trampled on any lingering inclinations towards expressing his inner discomfort he may have had. But he's been around a long time, and he's seen plenty of other people upset. Fathers who lose their children. Families who lose homes. Even Robin, a mysterious, ancient creature, sometimes wakes up from those night terrors in such a state of panic that all he can do for a while is sob helplessly into Vincent's chest.

So he thinks he knows what to do. He has to reach out a couple of times to find purchase, not sure exactly where Phalanx is piled up on the ground, but once he finds a shoulder or a leg or something to grab onto, he starts gathering the bundled mess together and pulling it in towards himself.

"Hey, it's okay," he assures them, not for the first time and probably not for the last, "I'm right here. I won't let anything get you."

He doesn't know what he's saying, exactly, nor is he thinking too hard about it. It just seems right to try and comfort them.

Phalanx doesn't seem to be thinking too hard about what they're doing either. Being disturbed from their place on the ground automatically gets them moving, aimlessly reaching, and being brought toward something much more actively comforting than a cold tile floor gets them pulling themselves toward it. Soon, the whole bundle of rags and bones is in Vincent's arms, and Phalanx is hanging onto him like a koala.

And things get quieter almost immediately. As universal as Phalanx's crying had been, there's something just as universal as surrounding, comforting arms. Phalanx clings onto it, and their very next breaths start to even out, shaking with relief.

It's a relief to Vincent, too, that Phalanx calms down so easily. He didn't really have a plan for if this went poorly, so he's glad that all he really has to do is continue holding him there, in his bathroom doorway, until they've calmed down enough to either talk or be carried somewhere else.

He still can't smell blood, and it doesn't seem like Phalanx is babying any injuries... So he probably doesn't have to worry about a concussion or anything like that. The kid(s) must have just gotten spooked about something in the middle of the night. It happens.

Yeah, while Phalanx can get pretty lucid--sometimes to the point of being clever--there is something about them now that seems regressed back to something much younger and more primal. Crying with so much sincerity and so little reservation, and calming so quickly, are a child's traits.

They're also obviously relieved to have someone there. This time, no outside encouragement is needed for them to cling onto the much larger man. Vincent is apparently far from being scary, right now.

Once they've had a little bit of quiet and Phalanx has had a chance to settle down, Vincent shifts a little--mostly just getting his own legs out from underneath him so that he can sit on the floor. His knees were starting to ache, crouching there for so long.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" He asks. He's not going to waste time worrying if he doesn't know, but he'd like to give Phalanx the chance to speak if it would help them feel less awful about whatever it was that was tormenting them.

There's another one of those inarticulate sounds as Phalanx attempts to answer before they really can, but it at least lets Vincent know that they're going to try.

It takes time. They continue to slowly calm down, they rearrange where they're folded up enough to be able to speak into open air. They even manage to wipe off their face a little bit. And when they do eventually try again, actual words are formed.

Voice all rough and exhausted, Phalanx manages to start, "There was--" but they immediately trail off into a hanging silence while they either search for words to finish the statement with, or get overwhelmed with the large idea that they need to fit into a small thought. Either way, when they finally continue, they skip past that sticking point entirely. "--And then, it was all gone."

The heartbreak with which the words are said is that same kind of vague, familiar anguish behind their tears. Fathers losing children. Families losing homes. Ancient things waking up to a nameless terror.

It does sound familiar. He was just there.

Kind of strange that he had a dream that felt pretty close to what Phalanx is talking about. Vincent couldn't say how it was close, but he has a strange feeling, a kind of heavy, cold feeling that tells him he's right.

"Sounds pretty awful," he replies after a moment, putting a hand protectively on the back of Phalanx's head. "S'okay though, there's plenty of stuff here. Nothing's gone or anything."

That only kind of makes sense, but his sentiment is genuine. They're all here, Robin is still out on the couch, there's still floors and walls and people sleeping in their beds beyond this tiny apartment. The world hasn't vanished into nothingness. No one is falling into a dark abyss for all eternity.

It is--perhaps nebulously unsurprising--a very reassuring sentiment. Tired and grateful, Phalanx plunks their head against Vincent's chest again, relieved that there is something solid there to touch.

See? He was right. They're all going to be okay.

After another minute of them huddled quietly on the floor, he speaks up again.

"Hey, what do you say we go see what Robin's up to?" He knows that the idiot is probably sleeping, but he doesn't want to suggest they go wake him out of a peaceful slumber (even though that's absolutely what he intends to do). "S'kind of silly to just be sitting on the bathroom floor."

Unhelpfully, Phalanx only leans in closer. This could be any number of answers. It could be the way children cling closer when they know they are about to be picked up and moved somewhere, silently acknowledging that they're going to go see Robin, or it could be an insistence that they stay stuck to Vincent. Either way, they don't seem like they're going to elaborate.

Well, Vincent thinks he gets it. And his instincts haven't been wrong so far. He's got more experience doing this with actual children, but the idea is the same--he gets one arm behind their back, another behind their legs, and lifts until he's fairly sure that all of Phalanx is up and off the floor.

"Damn, you need to eat more."

Vincent is very strong, but even he is surprised to feel how light Phalanx is. It really does feel more like hauling a kid around than an adult. He stands, trying his best to feel around for the door frame with his elbows and not let any part of his bundled rescue to get knocked against a wall on accident.

He still, somehow, avoids every beer can on the way back to the couch.

And, unlike most adults, Phalanx seems bizarrely comfortable with being carried. Not awkward or unsure about it at all, they hang there like a ragdoll, and stick close to make sure their center of gravity is as easy to deal with as possible.

Whether their previous answer had been in favor of staying or going, being carried around like this solves both of them, so they seem entirely content in this moment.

Now that they're here, Vincent can definitely tell that Robin is still fast asleep on the couch. He isn't mad at him, per se, since he knows all about the demigod's various troubles with sleeping in general... But he definitely does not want to be the only one in the house taking care of the ghost-thing that was supposed to be Robin's responsibility in the first place.

"Oy, idiot, wake up," Vincent says at a conversational volume, lifting his foot to give Robin a surprisingly accurate kick in the ribs.

Robin "oof"s in surprise, but aside from curling in towards the change and starting to roll onto his side, it doesn't seem like Robin is actually any closer to being awake.

"This guy..." Vincent mutters, incredulous, still holding Phalanx like a child.

As scary as Vincent has occasionally seemed to Phalanx in the past, they seem entirely unfazed by watching him kick a sleeping person in the ribs. They have their head turned enough to watch the whole thing, but only murmur conversationally in response to it.

Well, Vincent doesn't exactly have arms, and he doesn't want to put Phalanx down just yet (acting under the "the floor is lava" clause of child-handling etiquette, wherein scared kids will sometimes start freaking out if you try to make them stand on their own two feet after being held).

So he does the next best thing. He just sits on him.

Plunks himself right down as if Robin was an over-sized pillow. That gets the demigod to wake up, blearily wheezing to consciousness as he tries to figure out what heavy thing is suddenly pressing down on his solar plexus.

"Hey," Vincent deadpans at Robin, "Your kid had a bad dream or something."

Maybe Robin is also lava, because as soon as Vincent plunks down, Phalanx curls themself into a smaller shape, folding their knees and pulling their feet up.

Though, more likely, Vincent is now suddenly much more lap-shaped and Phalanx is feeling needy.

"What...?" Robin wheezes like a petulant child, "Get off of me."

Phalanx can feel Vincent shifting around--but not because he's moving. It's just Robin twisting around underneath him, trying to wriggle out from under his massive friend.

"Sorry, can't." That's when Vincent breaks into a rare grin. "Kid's getting comfy."

Okay, so maybe he is kind of having fun torturing Robin a little in the process of waking him up. Maybe he's just always wanted to smush him, in the way that you kind of want to smush annoying bugs.

And it's maybe a little contagious, because Phalanx does seem to get even more comfortable on cue. They snuggle in and seem a little more content while Robin suffers awake.

Eventually, Robin struggles a little further up the couch and manages to tug his legs out from underneath the several-hundred-pound weight threatening to crush him. Vincent sinks back down into the cushions now that there isn't a dense human body holding him up, and savors the lingering wheezing sounds coming from his dear, dear friend.

"What the fuck," said friend complains, finally rubbing his eyes, "What're you... What happened?"

Phalanx feels Vincent's whole body scrunch up into a shrug. "Had a weird dream. Woke up and this guy was sobbing in the bathroom."

Robin at least has eyeballs to see how disheveled Phalanx looks--which is saying something, considering the creature's usual appearance, and that the difference is even apparent in the dark. Whatever they had once been using as a hood and shawl is gone, their hair is a mess, and their already dark eyes are just sad, puffy, hollow pits.

They look pretty pathetic (and even younger than usual) huddled up in Vincent's giant lap.

Once Robin can see that Phalanx was clearly distressed, he stops his whining in favor of leaning closer, quickly reaching to run his fingers through their disheveled hair.

"I had no idea..." He admits, sounding a little guilty (which is rare), "Phalanx, what happened?"

But before Phalanx can even start to consider pulling some kind of an answer together, Vincent fills in the words for him: "He said something about there being... something, and then everything was gone. Like, uh, and end of the world thing. Except emptier, probably."

Vincent doesn't mean to rob Phalanx of the chance to talk... But if it was tough for them to explain the first time, he doesn't want to make them repeat the effort another time if they don't have to.

Phalanx doesn't seem to mind one bit that someone else is putting words in their mouth. They don't even echo or try to add anything to it. So, however accurate Vincent's description may or may not be to the truth, Phalanx doesn't feel the need to correct it.

Relieved to not have to put forth effort into an answer, and grateful that there is another person there doting on them, they just close their eyes when Robin combs his fingers through their hair.

"It's kind of weird," Vincent adds, after a moment of silence between all of them, "That's the dream I had too, I think."

Robin looks up at Vincent, though Vincent can't see him doing this. Then his gaze goes back down to Phalanx, a thin frown forming on his face. He knows what Vincent is talking about, though that's not necessarily a good thing.

"Strange..."

But ultimately, he decides not to say anything else about it. He forces his frown back into a smile, saying something nicer to cheer himself up.

"Good thing you woke up, then. I'm surprised I didn't wake up myself."

That's all Vincent needs to start talking about something else, "Seriously, you were out like a goddamn light. I kicked you."

"You kicked me?" Robin asks, surprised.

"Sure did," Vincent responds, smiling fondly again.

Skeleton City // PSL

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