psychoshenanigans | GRATIA // PSL

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GRATIA // PSL

So, here's what Irahl knows.

He's alone in a dark, cold cave. He has most, if not all, of his gear. No one is guarding his location. As he heads away from the spot where he came to consciousness, no one tries to stop him, and no one gets in his way. The few people he finds down there seem human, and not about to approach the nearly-seven-foot man that comes stalking out of the lower tunnels. Honestly, everyone here seems a surprised and a little astonished about his... Entire scene.

There is a way up. It's a maze of twisting corridors and confusing passageways, half of which feel too small for him. It's bigger and bigger groups of people, some of which scatter like schools of fish, and some of which have to be pushed through to get anywhere. It's climbing up into streets lit with dingy lights, graffiti-covered hallways, warehouses, weird holes in stone walls that may or may not be windows. It's alarm bells, it's people yelling at each other down the street. It's just an absurd number of stairs. A couple of people make an attempt to stop him somewhere, and it goes poorly for them.

Elsewhere, events are being set in motion where Irahl cannot see. But he's on his way out.

Eventually, more people try to stop him. At the end of another long stretch of Underground city, a group of official-looking folks are putting a real effort into blocking off the obvious exit, and some of them have weapons.

Down a side alley, into another tunnel, and then the space opens up into a... Plaza, of some sort? The floor is made of stone. The buildings surrounding it are made of stone and are hard to distinguish from one another. At at least the ceiling (also made of stone) is a lot higher than before. Cavernous. There's some kind of sculpture in the middle of it, some impressive feat of geometric stonework that gives the illusion of defying gravity despite weighing literal tons.

This is where someone finally catches him. Sounds have been echoing unhelpfully down every passageway, making it hard to tell if people are coming or going - but this series of quick footsteps comes from an upward direction before someone hits the ground about five feet in front of Irahl.

His clothes are different. His hair is better-kept. Maybe if the situation wasn't quite so tense, there'd be time to see the ways in which his face is different, the way his eyes don't have quite as vicious and sharp a gleam as they used to. But whatever Irahl can take in of him, there is Robin, having hopped down from a rooftop to put himself between him and the exit again.

"...Holy shit."

Kind of weird that he looks absolutely shocked to see the person in front of him, though.

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It takes a whole two seconds after claiming the couch before Irahl starts moving his stuff from leaning against one wall to leaning against another wall, beginning to set up his temporary nest. He would love to shove the couch back against the wall, but even he is socially aware enough to know that he should at least wait twenty-four hours before rearranging his friend's furniture.

For now, he'll just choose which way he'll be lying on the couch (if he even stays there the whole night), move his things to be within arm's reach of that spot, tuck his favorite knife somewhere conveniently even closer than that, and retrieve his music player from the now-useless outlet.

This is what he's in the middle of busying around with when Vincent speaks up from the doorway of his room.

"If you have something with a high collar, I'll take donations in the morning."

He doesn't know if Vincent is a turtleneck man, but Irahl is feeling pretty paranoid about being spotted as not human, so no harm in asking.

That's... A strangely specific request, from Irahl. His stay there in the doorway to the bedroom gets even longer as he tries to parse what the guy said alongside wondering if he actually owns anything with a collar aside from his coat.

Nothing comes to him. For either question.

"Uh," still looking a little confused, he starts to wonder if maybe this is a joke he isn't getting. Maybe he forgot something obvious. "What for?"

Right.

He supposes that makes sense, now that he thinks about it.

It must speak to Irahl's level of comfort around Vincent that he has not kept meticulous track of what the other man does and doesn't know about his features, as well as the fact that he casually assumes that he already knows all of it.

So, there's an awkward pause while Irahl grapples with the fact that he has never had to say out loud that he has scales before. While he mostly doesn't mind Vincent knowing by now, the effort of actually forming the words is pretty uncomfortable. He wishes the details weren't strategically important for Vincent to be aware of.

If Vincent has never heard Irahl embarrassed before, he has now.

"...Scales. Up the whole front of my neck."

"...Oh!"

Just as he's hit with this new information, some neural pathway in his mind unhelpfully goes, 'oh yeah, we sort of knew that!' and reopens a specific tactile memory. That he immediately works on trying to forget again. Right, right... Right...

"Got it, sorry." He has yet to actually remove his shirt from where it's bunched up over his arms, which makes it all the dumber when he rubs at his forehead with the side of his hand. "I'm an idiot. That makes sense."

Okay. He'll finally pull his shirt all the way off and duck into his bedroom to look for clothes. If anything, he needs a moment to make sure his face isn't doing anything stupid.

"Ain't a big style selection, but I'll take a look..." He calls back from the bedroom, managing to sound mostly casual and not at all embarrassed by the dumb thing he just said. It's fine! This is fine.

While Vincent retreats to regain his composure, Irahl does the same by continuing to arrange his meager belongings in the most optimal way near the couch. As he does so, it takes him a few seconds to realize that it sounds like Vincent is rummaging around for clothes right this moment.

By saying that he'd take clothing donations tomorrow, he'd meant that any search for said clothing could also occur tomorrow. But he hadn't quite made that clear.

So now, what he'd originally hoped would be a sort of quick, parting comment to Vincent as he'd left to bed is now becoming something more drawn out. The awkward moment is being extended. And there's nothing he can do about it, because it's not like he's going to speak up and correct him now in the wake of something that had already been embarrassing.

Vincent won't find any turtlenecks, and he doesn't actually own that many clothes, so it is actually a very quick search. What Irahl doesn't know is that Vincent is also looking for something to change into himself, which takes extra time and makes him sound busier than he is.

Vincent's not one to let this awkwardness stand, though. He can barely tolerate it on a good day, but this is the first time they've seen each other in three months. No room for that for long, especially in the one place in Skeleton City where being a weird monster-guy isn't going to be an issue.

"Heads-up," Vincent suddenly warns him, before lobbing a pillow into the living room in the strangely-accurate direction of Irahl's head. Now that he's changed into comfier pants, he comes back to lean in the doorway with a stupid smile on his face.

"In case you want it. You remember how to use a pillow, right?"

It really is a damn shame that Vincent can't see, because Irahl is inordinately startled by the sudden warning and attack. With how much the previous topic tends to wind him up on a day when he isn't already worried about being called out and caught for being inhuman, his nerves are immediately set to 'jumpy' with hardly any provocation.

So, his expression is pretty good when Vincent fully causes him to jump right before he's then hit with a pillow.

At the very least, jarring Irahl like that does effectively shatter the moment of awkwardness.

"Of course. Put it over the nose and mouth and hold it down until they stop moving."

The murder-jokes are back, so he's probably fine now.

Even if he can't see Irahl's face, the joke still gets a good hearty laugh out of Vincent. He's already laughed more today than he has in a month, maybe two.

"Great, great. Then I'mma try an' sleep."

And with neither pomp nor fanfare, Vincent flops back into his bed.

"Bug me if you need anything, aight?"

Which is probably his way of saying goodnight.

A laugh like that is a good way to end the night. It automatically eases Irahl's mind a little more, irons out some of the biggest spikes of anxiety in his mind, and jogs a few more good memories loose.

Then, with Vincent officially retiring to the other room, Irahl is finally left alone for the first time since he'd awoken downstairs. At last, he can listen to a new set of nighttime sounds and process anything that has happened that day.

For a while, it's letting the completely disorganized cacophony in his head start to settle while he busies with the files on his music player. Then, once he's mostly certain that Vincent is asleep and he can tell that his thoughts are now dangerously close to becoming intelligible, he gets up to actually investigate his new surroundings. As quietly as he can--knowing how well his roommate can hear--he paces around, peeking into rooms and corners without actually touching almost anything. The only noise he dares to make is the tiny sound of cracking open the closet door directly behind the couch, just enough to see inside.

He stands near various walls to listen for sounds within and beyond them. He finally takes off his boots. He brings over his coat to serve as a blanket. And only once he's sure that there is any chance he won't be trapped awake and thinking all night, he lays down to contemplate the possibility of sleep.

Thankfully, Vincent is always pretty quick to fall asleep. Even worried as he is that the stress and excitement of the day will keep him up, Irahl won't have to wait more than a half-hour before he can begin his deeper explorations. Especially with the pull of the Haunting guiding his dreams again, Vincent won't wake up as long as Irahl doesn't knock over any of those notoriously loud towers of beer cans.

Vincent's house is very utilitarian. A little unorganized, definitely not color-coordinated, but he's got basic supplies for emergencies, house repairs, and cleaning. There are hints that Robin makes himself at home here, tucked away. Boxes of hair dye stashed in a bag in the bathroom, clothes way too small for Vincent folded and stacked on a shelf in the closet. On the bright side, Robin's stay here also means the place has been picked over multiple times by someone almost as paranoid as Irahl, so the apartment is actually pretty damn secure aside from the bizarre lack of locks.

There are occasionally sounds of other people living in other apartments, but they're mostly muffled and seem far away. It's dark and quiet, save for the dim light overhead and it's occasional, weak flickering.

About four hours later, whether or not Irahl sleep finds Irahl, there's a series of quiet footsteps outside from someone walking up the ramp, down the hall, and stopping just outside the apartment door. As this is happening, there's some shuffling from Vincent's room as he sits up in bed, though he still looks half-asleep.

Weird timing, since the much-more-audible knock at his door comes after he wakes up.

Whatever exhausted, twilit stage of semi-consciousness Irahl happens to be at that point in the night, his brain is hardwired to dump adrenaline into his veins at unfamiliar sounds. It's probably not the first time it has happened tonight, in fact. But this time, the phantom threat that he was able to dispel after whatever had startled him last time doesn't go away when his eyes fly open and his entire being goes still while he listens.

As soon as he can tell that the footsteps are approaching and then slowing near the door, he is moving, silently rolling off the couch and onto his feet. He registers movement from Vincent, but it hardly enters his conscious awareness compared to whatever's outside.

One of the many people who had seen him earlier had tipped off the authorities, or a bounty hunter, or anyone else who might take exception to the presence of an illegal, monstrous, rifle-wielding fugitive. That's who's outside.

Especially without any of his gear on, Irahl can move quietly when he needs to. A second or two after the knock on the door, the sniper is posted up against the wall in the shadows of the kitchen, one lunge's worth of distance from the door, knife held down by his side and ready.

Vincent, meanwhile, stumbles up to the doorframe, managing to look bleary-eyed despite his eyelids being closed.

"...It's Seth," he mumbles, sounding vaguely surprised. Hard to tell if he's surprised to hear Seth at his door, surprised that he knows it's Seth at all, or just surprised because it's somewhere between two and three in the morning (which is generally a weird time for anyone to visit anyone).

Whatever the case, he's either oblivious or unconcerned about Irahl being extremely on-guard and ready to kill. In fact, he shuffles right up to answer the door. He only opens it about a quarter of the way, which... Given his sheer size, Vincent still blocks the view of most of the room anyway.

"Hey," Vincent addresses the visitor quietly, confused but delighted, before disappearing from view into what sounds like it might be a hug. "What're you doin' here...?"

Surreally, Vincent's voice also answers him from beyond the door, albeit with less inflection and more of the consonants that usually go on the ends of syllables.

"You got quiet."

"Nah, I was just... S'been a crazy day, man." Vincent's back reappears in the doorway, though his face is still partly obscured. "Come on, come inside."

"I won't," states the one who Irahl has hopefully remembered is Vincent's identical twin. Vincent's tone is immediately tinged with disappointment.

"Come on, Seth... Just for like, five minutes."

"I won't," Seth repeats. He doesn't sound mad, but he does sound very tired.

Vincent sighs. For a second, he almost sounds like he's going to try to argue, but he drops it. He also drops his arm, which must have been holding on to some part of Seth.

"Fine, stand out there. At least listen, okay?"

"I'm listening."

As Vincent arrives and takes control of the situation, ferocious tension begins to ebb out of Irahl, but he remains on guard. Seeing the hug helps. And being that the guy outside seems adamantly against anything that could resemble storming in and looking around, the sense of immediate threat fades enough for Irahl's brain to come back online.

All of the important things wake up in his mind, including whatever is needed to recognize exactly who is at the door and the various facets of significance related to that.

The first realization that Irahl quickly comes to is that the longer he hides, the more suspicious and surprising it will be if he is discovered. There is a good chance he would be able to get away with hiding the entire time, but if that somehow fails, the consequences will be great. This is the guy that he's supposed to talk to and convince in the morning, and everything hinges on that going well.

The second thing that dawns on him is that if this guy doesn't want to come inside, it sounds like Vincent is planning on talking about things right there in the open doorway, where any number of people could overhear. If Irahl had been waffling on what to do after that first point, the second point (and how it plays on his paranoia) decides it for him.

So, against the good amount of caution that still has him keyed up, Irahl makes his presence known.

Stepping back from the wall, he moves out from his hiding place in the widest possible arc, so that he is a good distance back from the door when he finally comes into view wherever the visitor can see into the apartment around Vincent's frame.

Moving into view nice and early is a good idea. While Vincent's brother is apparently willing to go along with some wild stuff when it's coming from his twin, it's hard to say if he'd extend that same grace to his twin's strange, space-faring monster friend. Especially if that friend gets caught looking like he's planning to assassinate the guy at the door.

"My friend, from that place I went to?" Vincent continues speaking, quietly but with a measure of excitement coming back to his tone, "He's here. Ran into him today."

This is when Irahl finally gets a decent look (around Vincent) at the enigmatic Seth.

Aside from the initial damning detail of two seven-foot-tall men standing right next to each other, Seth looks different enough from his brother that he could conceivably be confused for a more distant relative. His skin is darker, his hair is a shade lighter and cropped short. Very clean. His eyes are brown, where Vincent's eyes are a modified blue (or, well, missing). They have near-identical builds, but Seth stands with impeccable posture and wears a long, perfectly-tailored coat. His clothes are doing everything in some poor tailor's power to create the illusion of a much slimmer figure than he actually has.

But when Seth's eyes dart to the figure now moving inside the room, Vincent's features are all clearly there in his face. The same angles, the same mouth and nose, the same world-weariness settled deep in the shades under his eyes. Seth doesn't immediately strike Irahl as someone who smiles very much, but he's certainly got the same hard-set frown as his cheerier brother.

As soon as he spots Irahl, one of Seth's hands go to the hilt of a sword at his side in a motion so fluid and practiced that he probably didn't even consciously think about doing it. He has two swords holstered at his right side, one at his left. He doesn't do anything, just rests his hand there as he narrows his eyes at the new presence in Vincent's house.

Vincent, noticing, turns his body a little to let the two of them actually look at each other.

"This's Irahl. We were actually gonna come talk to you in a couple days."

"Were you," asks Seth, giving absolutely no indication that it was a question. He glances briefly over the entirety of Irahl's person--which would normally be enough--but his frown deepens as he has to give Irahl a second visual pass, clearly trying to suss out just how tall he is. Cool and collected or not, it's very weird for him to see someone else his height aside from his brother.

"Yeah," Vincent continues, unfazed by the cold reception, "We need to get him set up here, an' I was hopin' you'd have some ideas."

"I'm leaving," Seth says abruptly, eyes focusing back on his brother's face. "Tomorrow evening."

"What?" Surprised, Vincent tilts his head to the side, "Why? You just got here..."

After barely a ghost of a sigh, Seth explains. His expression seems to soften infinitesimally whenever he's speaking to his brother.

"I've pushed off a great deal of my responsibilities in order to be here. If your business has concluded, I should not push them further." He spares one more glance at Irahl before finishing the thought towards Vincent, "Come see me. My hotel, tomorrow morning."

"Seth, why not--" Vincent sighs, much more animated, and gestures vaguely towards the interior of his apartment, "Why not just talk here? You're here. You're home."

"I won't," he states, again. There's a strange pause before he quietly specifies, "Why should I? You won't set foot in mine."

And this is a very odd moment to witness, because the comment sounds very calm and clinical as it leaves Seth's mouth, but Vincent reacts like he was just told something kind of upsetting or mean, and then Seth almost looks a little bit sad to have said it. After a loaded silence, Vincent leans forward to rest his forehead on his brother's shoulder.

"You stupid pain in the ass," he says, but where it seems like more words should follow, Vincent says nothing.

Seth looks down at his brother, still frowning, but does put an arm around Vincent's back in some vague semblance of a hug. After a moment, he proves that at least one of them is aware that this is probably pretty awkward for the guy still standing in the living room by saying, "You're being dramatic."

"Says you," Vincent says back, but he does straighten up out of it enough to disengage and huff, "Fuckin'... Fine, we'll come by in the mornin'."

And now that this bizarre family interaction seems to have run it's course, or something, Seth finally turns his rather intense gaze back to Irahl, addressing him directly. Very crisp, very formal. And like nothing weird had just happened.

"I understand that you took care of my little brother while the two of you were away. Correct?"

Vincent says nothing, busy looking vaguely annoyed by his sibling.

This whole interaction will undoubtedly give him a lot to think about when he attempts the futile endeavor of falling back to sleep later on, but most of the processing has been temporarily shelved. There's a lot to be gleaned from this surreal glimpse into more of Vincent's world, none of which Irahl has any context for. There isn't even the personal experience of having siblings to fall back on, for him.

So, he watches quietly, learns a few important points from the interaction while the rest is saved for later, and waits to see where it ultimately goes. He does find himself relieved when Seth calls off this meeting before any more can be said out into the open hallway, and is also pleasantly surprised when he is directly addressed by the other man. He doesn't know almost anything about him, but Irahl can at least guess that he'd be just as likely to say nothing at all to the tall stranger holding a knife. Irahl doesn't take it for granted.

He also answers as if he saw nothing weird happen here.

"Tried. He's better at it than I am, though."

Well, Vincent can't stay all that mad when he's being complimented like that. It pulls him out of his current emotional orbit, gets him to smile a little.

Seth, meanwhile, maintains his stony composure as he takes in the answer from just the other side of the doorway. Just because he doesn't want to have a full conversation right here and now doesn't mean that he shouldn't at least acknowledge the man whose livelihood they'll be discussing.

Besides, Irahl has been such a bizarre fascination of his brother's and such a proverbial blind spot in his own understanding of the world that it'd be foolish not to at least get a vague idea of who he is. Whatever his opinion of Irahl's answer, he keeps it to himself for now.

"Whatever the case may be, I am grateful." This is... Probably a profound statement from Seth, but he delivers it with so little emotion that it's kind of hard to tell. "And I apologize for this being our first meeting. I was not aware that my brother already had company."

Vincent, catching a vibe, tips his head back and adds, "Yeah, yeah... M'sorry I got weird about stuff in the middle of the doorway."

Seth takes a moment to reach over and pat his brother on the shoulder (is this where Vincent gets it from?), before addressing Irahl one more time.

"We may speak candidly tomorrow." Then, in a final aside to Vincent, "Get some sleep."

That gets Vincent to smirk. He reaches out to return Seth's gesture, finding and holding onto his shoulder for a moment.

"Hey, if you want me to sleep, maybe visit at a normal fuckin' hour."

Seth makes absolutely zero promises, nods curtly to the both of them, and then turns to walk back down the hallway the way he'd come. He doesn't even look stupid when he slides down the stupid ramp made out of ceiling. What a baller.

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GRATIA // PSL

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