GRATIA // PSL

[skeletoncity]

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.

Comments

[indigochild]

There's a small huff of a sigh from Irahl, but it's not out of annoyance. Or, at least, it's not out of the kind of annoyance that makes sense. He's more perturbed at the fact that Vincent has managed to come up with a new way to be stupid and endearing.

"Rise and shine. You're late," he stoically teases, figuring that maybe confusing Vincent will get his brain working enough to wake up.

Meanwhile, he drops his cloak and coat onto a nearby chair and peers over into corners of the room he couldn't see from the door without really realizing it, just wearily going through the paranoid motions he usually does when settling into a hotel room.

[hatesblindjokes]

Good news for Irahl's tired brain, this place is pretty damn secure. No surprises, no weird architectural details, no cameras. There's a nice big window that looks out over the sidewalk he'd just been walking down with Seth, but that's what the plush, heavy curtains are for. Maybe they were given this weird room with one bed because it was one of the more secure choices in the building.

It's not at all true, but maybe it'll make Irahl feel better if he believes it.

Vincent does look momentarily surprised as he's told he's late to something, but his sense of time is so fucked up that he has no idea if that's true or not. Or what he's late to. So surprise turns to confusion as he rubs his face, and then rubs his eyes. He sure doesn't feel like he got a solid eight hours of sleep or anything.

"What... The fuck time is it...?" He says, making some effort to wake up and get a handle on reality, "You're back?"

[indigochild]

"Late," is his first reply, because he certainly doesn't know what time it is.

Pushing his gear bag and rifle over a little, he sits on the edge of what he's still mostly sure must be his bed to untie his boots. And once those are off, he starts unpacking his clothes and other belongings that don't belong in his gear bag.

He needs to get all of that extra weight out of there, of course, but he also needs to find his watch. If he has any hope of waking up on time in the morning, he needs to make the digital portion of the device match whatever Jandru had set the analog portion to, and then set some alarms.

"...Does your brother ever sleep, or did you inherit all of that ability?"

[hatesblindjokes]

"...Thought you said..."

Wait for it. The other half of his brain eventually catches up. He leans an arm back on the table to lean on it and smirk now that he's finally realized Irahl is just fucking with him.

"Alright, motherfucker..."

But Irahl's not in trouble or anything. Just the ghost of a threat before they move on from the dumb little joke that he nearly fell for while half-asleep. He just lets it fade away while he listens to Irahl unpacking things, already feeling a little calmer than he has for most of the day.

"Nah, he won't sleep unless he's by me," Vincent just kind of says like he's talking about a weird pet and not one of the highest-ranking generals in the city, "Used to not, anyway. Maybe he's gotten better..."

And then to add insult to injury, he yawns. "But bad sleep kinda runs in the family. I'm just tryin'a make up for lost time, y'know?"

[indigochild]

There is a slight pause in the sounds of unpacking as Irahl glances over at Vincent, unsure whether or not he's being serious, is being hyperbolic, or is being sarcastic as a jab back at him.

He returns to unpacking after a moment, but very quickly unburies his watch. Then, there's a bit of a gear-shift as his attention hones in on a tiny screen and accompanying buttons, and he starts clicking away.

"Thought maybe he was nocturnal, but have an early day tomorrow."

[hatesblindjokes]

"Yeah, no," Vincent reiterates, "He's just crazy."

But the comments about an early day (and the fact that it's not somehow already tomorrow) remind him of everything that happened earlier in the afternoon, and he suddenly looks attentive and hopeful.

"But that's good if he asked you back, right? How'd your stuff go?"

[indigochild]

The clock is synched up and alarms are set, but Vincent's question has Irahl just sitting there looking somewhere past the screen for a minute.

The immediate impulse is to deflect, of course. He's still mostly in work-mode, and that's just what he does while in work-mode. It's the mode that he spends ninety percent of his life in. There is that remaining percentage that lies outside of that, however, and that's where Vincent lives. So, the question trips him up.

He's in this city to work, and to work harder than he has in quite a while. Part of him is annoyed to have any distraction that might divert from that. However, after sitting with it for a few moments, staring at his watch, the question continues to circle in his head until he finally notices how busy it is in there. He has a lot on his mind, he has had a mentally and physically exhausting day, and Vincent asking about it makes it not quite as easy to shove it all onto a shelf.

Reluctantly, he realizes that he doesn't hate that thought. He's actually tempted to give a real answer. It's weird.

"Good... I think."

[hatesblindjokes]

Vincent still hasn't quite caught on to the fact that there's a huge division between Irahl's work life and his (admittedly very selective) social life. While they certainly tried to keep busy up in space-jail, he doesn't know that that wasn't really Irahl at work. Likewise, he has no idea that asking him about work is basically throwing him a curve ball.

To him, this is just what friends do after a long day of work. He seems happy to hear it, even if Irahl has some doubts, and he sinks a little further into his leaning against the desk.

"Good's probably great, honestly..." With how his brother is, he imagines he runs a pretty tight don't-let-them-think-they're-in-until-they're-in kind of ship.

He's not about to brush away the second half of that comment, though. Casually, he asks, "You worried about anythin'? Or just kinda... Generally not completely sure?"

[indigochild]

Again, Irahl has to think about the question, and little does Vincent know what a miracle it is that Irahl is thinking about it. There are quite a few people who would be shocked if they'd known.

While he mulls it over, Irahl busies--slowly--with the things he needs to be doing right now. Repacking his gear bag, moving his clothes off of the bed and to some nearby piece of furniture that will serve as a makeshift dresser (even if there is an actual dresser in here), unbuckling his armor.

"...Some of the tests were weird," he finally says. "Real random. Not what I'd expected."

[hatesblindjokes]

"Huh..."

He tries to imagine what a 'random' test would look like for a military group run by his brother... He knows the couple of mean tricks that got pulled on them at boot camp (and he wouldn't be surprised if Seth spitefully repurposed them years later), but...

"Can I ask like what? We talkin', like..." He waves a little, gesturing as he thinks of the stupidest possible guess, "Pie eatin' contest?"

[indigochild]

That suggestion gets a little scoff from Irahl, but it is a little one, because... he can't rule it out as a possibility, in all honesty. And once more, he doesn't really plan on directly answering much beyond that, but just as he'd sort of stumbled into venting about his coworkers on a couple of occasions with Vincent, he falls into talking more easily than he means to here.

"There was, uh... had a bunch of weird weapons and contraptions, and just said to kill some dummies however I wanted," which has him frowning slightly, because saying it out loud doesn't quite convey the strangeness of it, but elaboration isn't his style.

He stops to pull off his cuirass, and--miracle of all miracles--continues speaking afterward.

"Also a blindfold thing. You would have liked that one... And there was one I skipped."

[hatesblindjokes]

That does all sound pretty weird... If he had a few more details, he might have been able to figure out what all of it was for (because it was for a specific reason that couldn't occur to most people), but right now it's too vague for him to imagine anything other than random carnival games.

"Weird... Wonder if they're just really goin' wide or what.."

As it is, he doesn't have the answers. Honestly, he doesn't even know how they'd score something like that first one.

"Maybe half of those is just seein' if you'll do weird shit to begin with."

[indigochild]

Irahl hadn't really been looking for answers anyway, as he hadn't realized he'd even been wondering about it until about a minute ago. Just explaining why he isn't completely sure it all went well, and having the other person go 'yeah that's kind of weird,' is already noteworthy.

"Yeah, maybe." He genuinely wouldn't be surprised if that's the case. Either way... "Can't imagine what their notes must say."

And this he does spend a minute thinking about as he hauls his rifle and gear bag off the bed and arranges them against the wall nearby. Some of it is trying to estimate how they may have gauged his performance, but part of it is also speculating on more specific notes purely for entertainment's sake. 'Turned prototype gun into stabbing weapon. Bit open a sandbag. Got mad at a chair.'

[hatesblindjokes]

With that kind of prompting, Vincent spends the silence thinking about the exact same thing. After a moment, he makes himself chuckle as he imagines a couple particulars based on his own experiences with the guy.

"'Highest possible score on the cinnamon test,'" he jokes, "'But kept killin' sentry guns for absolutely no reason. Unhinged. Hire immediately.'"

[indigochild]

While he fondly remembers the dangers of seasoning canisters, it's the second part of that mental image that really makes him smirk. Something about Vincent saying it really gets him.

As they chat, Irahl wanders around and finishes getting ready for bed. Taking off his scarf, stepping over to the kitchenette to rub his face down with water, plugging in his music player to charge--those sorts of things.

"I did break a lot of their stuff... A sandbag turret was one of them."

[hatesblindjokes]

"Oh, shit--" Vincent laughs, "So that might be on there!"

He remembers the tenacity with which Irahl tore through the obstacle course back up in space. Vincent became very familiar with the sounds of the destruction this guy left in his wake. And that was on a course where it was really, really hard to break anything.

Though trying to imagine the scene does lead him to another question he had. Still sitting at the desk (he doesn't want to get in the way while Irahl's busying around), he asks into the room for Irahl to hear.

"I know my bro wasn't runnin' 'em since he was with me a lot of the time, so was it just... Was Jandru doing everythin' or did they have other people there?"

[indigochild]

The conversation with Vincent had helped to wake him up a bit, but he's still working against a ticking clock of tiredness, and this crashing energy has him wandering over to take a peek into the fridge to see if there's any complimentary or leftover snacks that he can shove into his face. In addition to all of the physical and mental exertion over the course of the day, he had accidentally used up some of his energy stores when he'd deflected that blast from the water gun, and that always exhausts him far more than anything else.

"One other. Second in command." It takes him a second to fish up the name. "...Nikaro?"

[hatesblindjokes]

Oh, the fridge is fully stocked with easy-to-eat snacks. This could just be a complimentary service of the hotel, but Seth had also fully admitted to bringing in catering to keep his brother occupied in a different expensive hotel. This could easily be a move to try and keep Vincent from needing to leave this room.

The name sounds very familiar to Vincent. He has to search his memory to recall exactly why, but a moment later he smacks the top of the table with a sudden realization.

"--You're jokin'." He sounds incredulous and a little amazed, as if Irahl just gave him the name of a celebrity or something, "What'd they look like? Blond? Kinda tall?"

[indigochild]

Ah, without the fear that Vincent might be out of treats if he grazes too heavily, Irahl more or less stands there with the fridge door open and picks at whatever he roughly estimates to be filling and easy to devour efficiently.

He had half-expected Vincent to recognize the name, but more in the way that he knows Jandru's name, and not... whatever this other dawning realization is.

"Yeah? Engineer type. Equipment specialist."

[hatesblindjokes]

Once he said it, Vincent was already readying himself to be disappointed--since this is kind of a wild conclusion to jump to. There are probably plenty of people in the city named Nikaro. It's probably way more likely that this is a wild coincidence.

But then he hears 'engineer type' and pivots so hard in the other direction that he starts laughing.

"Oh, shit..." He runs his hand through his hair, equal parts amazed and... Kind of flabbergasted that his twin hadn't mentioned this to him at any point? "That son of a bitch... They're from our old unit. I thought they fuckin' died... Gods, right after I got kicked out?"

[indigochild]

Vincent can't see the way that Irahl's eyebrows raise in surprise, but the sounds of fridge-rummaging pause as he glances over. There are a couple of different points of interest to Vincent's revelation, and none of them are things that Irahl could have guessed if he'd tried.

A few questions come to mind then, and he wonders if they might ever be answered or if it will remaining a curious mystery--because there's no way that he'll be the one to ask any of them. Maybe Vincent will corner his brother about it at some point and Irahl will hear the results by proxy.

Along with this, there's another thing that Irahl finds himself surprised by, and he has no idea why he hadn't considered the possibility before now. Vincent says 'our unit,' and Irahl realizes for the first time that Vincent and Seth could have both been in the military together.

A couple of things make way more sense in light of that as a big chunk of context suddenly falls into place.

Irahl finally finishes his scavenging and lets the poor fridge door close, grabs a glass of water at the sink, and heads back to his seat on the bed.

"Well, they were alive and took me smashing up their obstacle course very well."

[hatesblindjokes]

Turns out everybody gets a revelation tonight. Vincent's hang-ups and deep shame around his miliary failings and his brother going off to do better than he ever did make a lot more sense in the context of them being in the same unit at the same time. They truly were inseparable, until they suddenly weren't.

"Fuck, man. Good for them. Wonder why he never told me..." He muses this aloud about his brother, shaking his head in lingering disbelief, " I mean--we weren't ride-or-die soulmates or nothin', but... I thought we were buds. Got along with my brother good, so I liked 'em."

Hey, now that Vincent knows Nikaro is alive, that brings the total number of people who can stand both twins at the same time up to two.

"They were always... Fuckin' weird though, so I dunno."

He doesn't seem too offended, just... Confused, really. He feels like he missed a step walking down a flight of stairs.

[indigochild]

The original plan, following his usual routine, had been to set everything up to wake up in the morning, get ready for bed... and just go to bed. But with Vincent here and chatting, that routine gets a little interrupted. It's jarring, but the end result still ends up closer to their aimless and companionable habits on the ship. At first, he sits on the edge of the bed and goes to put his glass of water on the nightstand, before hesitating and rearranging to sit back against the headboard. He just kind of continues to hold onto his drink. The glass usually had alcohol in it, up in space, but otherwise the scene is pretty familiar.

This may be the first time in history that Irahl takes a (brief) break in the middle of work-mode to do something that seems suspiciously like relaxing.

"Weird how?"

[hatesblindjokes]

This does feel familiar, doesn't it? Conversation going just a little bit too long, Vincent sitting in whatever chair he's landed in for the evening, telling stories... Both of them finally in a space where no one can hear them, just... Hanging out because it feels good to be in each other's company.

"Man, they were... It's kinda hard to describe, but..."

Vincent does feel like he's missing having some kind of beverage in his hand, but gossip will have to tide him over.

"You know, one day I noticed they didn't have any friends. Nicest one in the unit. Almost everyone liked 'em. Had a talent for settlin' arguments. Pretty sure they could have gotten anyone on the unit to agree to basically anythin' if you gave 'em enough time. But they'd never hang out with nobody. Didn't get close to anyone. Just kept it..."

He gestures with his hand in a flat line, to imply no change, no ups, no downs.

"So one day I called 'em out on it. I remember them bein' real' surprised I was even payin' that much attention. An' then they kinda met my brother through me, an' my brother doesn't give a shit about bein' nice, so I think Nikaro also kinda stopped givin' a shit about being nice, at least to us. And it turns out? They were a mean son of a bitch under all that."

[indigochild]

"Hmm."

It's the only sound Irahl makes for a minute as he takes in all that Vincent describes and compares it to the person that he'd only glancingly acknowledged earlier. It seems to check out, and if Vincent's assessment is accurate, it tells Irahl a lot.

He'd known a few guys like that over the years. They'd been some of the more tolerable ones to work with, and even tended to get along better with him than most--as long as there were no conflicts of strong opinions. Then, things would get nasty pretty fast, surprising everyone. Any clashes or tarnished opinions had never been a significant problem for him, but none of them had been second-in-command of anything.

Trying to guess how things might ultimately pan out with them is a skill that he doesn't have, but at least he has a clearer picture of what might be going on beneath their ambiently-pleasant exterior. He can make a pointed note to himself not to underestimate them or form premature opinions about their character. At the very least, learning that they have a secret mean streak has earned them some points.

Finally, he marks the tail-end of all of this deep thinking with a sip from his glass. "...Good to know."