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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Vincent sighs, making an effort to unfold his arms and appear less crabby now that he's been caught by the staff. Irahl may be deeply uncomfortable in places like this, but at least Irahl is quiet... Vincent's pulls attention like a magnet the second he forgets that he's somewhere you can't just get mad and swear at people.

"'Kay, great. Maybe the curse is finally lifting..."

Which is to say that he didn't notice that something's been slipped into his bowl. He's busy picking up Irahl's drink once again to actually give the thing a try.

"...Damn, that's sour. You weren't kiddin'." About the drink being weird, he means. He likewise doesn't hate it or anything, it's just a far cry from the one-to-two-ingredient drinks he usually partakes in.

Yeah, Irahl has neither the vocabulary nor the inclination to use multiple words necessary to convey that he thinks the sourness is undercut by the notes of ginger and herbal flavors in a way that he thinks he likes. So, he answers with an agreeing grunt and leaves it at that.

Likewise, all he has to say about Vincent's drink as he begins to explore his meal with stabs of his fork is, "Yours doesn't taste as pink as it looks."

Vincent agrees as he slides the copper mug back in Irahl's direction.

"Yeah, it ain't bad. Sure ain't anything you're gonna find in Skeleton City, that's for sure..."

Vincent will do a little light investigating of his own food, poking around with his fork unwittingly burying that intruding succulent branch further down in his bowl. He figures out the eggs, too. Before he gets too far into eating, he picks up his cup for another sip--and suddenly remembers something.

"Oh, hey! Listen, serious for a second--but cheers on your job, man. Way to survive the beatdown."

He smiles and holds his cup out... Hesitantly, because he's not really sure how hard you can clink one of these kinds of glasses together and he also can't see if another one is coming his way.

Ah, another thing that Irahl isn't used to: being congratulated on anything. He'd just taken his first exploratory bite of food, so that's a good excuse to reply with only a wordless, sort of awkward murmur as a stand-in for 'thanks.' Then, a few seconds later, Vincent's glass is carefully tapped with a copper mug.

A sip of his drink and a few more bites of his meal buy him time before he finally uses actual words.

"...Hard to believe it's real."

Vincent knows Irahl wouldn't have taken the compliment well even if they weren't in a brightly-lit venue full of people eating breakfast. But he wanted him to hear it all the same, and is pleased that Irahl still finishes the "cheers" gesture.

He busies with his own food as well, during that time. A couple bites in he decides that it's pretty good, even if he couldn't identify a single thing it's seasoned with.

"You mean the job, or... The whole thing?" He asks, stirring up his bowl a little. The placement of that rogue succulent twig now a complete mystery. Who knows when it will strike again.

With the thinking that Irahl is now doing, the bit of succulent leaves his mind as well, so they'll both be surprised when the fated moment finally comes.

In the meantime, he's enjoying his meal as well as he enjoys any protein-filled meal that doesn't come from a can (or a dispenser), and the unfamiliar ingredients give him something to focus on while enduring the discomfort of a conversation.

"Yeah," he first answers before sipping his drink. "Once I got back home, didn't think much would ever change again." So, yeah, both.

"Yeah... Makes sense to me. Honestly, if you weren't right next to me, I'd hardly believe it either." Vincent taps Irahl's shoulder with the backs of his fingers, lightly, for emphasis. "An' you already know I never thought I'd be back here again."

While Vincent is no stranger to coaxing Irahl into talking about his thoughts and feelings, that's something he prefers to do in private. He doesn't necessarily want to get into the weight of things while they're in the corner of a pretentious breakfast joint drinking frilly cocktails. So he replies easily and keeps his tone casual.

"Actually had a pretty good conversation with my brother, the day before... Wait, three days ago? Or has it been four days?" So his sense of time hasn't been the best out here. "Whenever we first got here."

Edited 2024-11-18 06:09 (UTC)

Irahl is pretty sure that it has been five days, but with how random his bouts of sleeping have been while he's been healing, there's no way to know for sure.

"This has been him in a good mood, huh?" he asks around a mouthful of breakfast.

It's the easiest thing to comment on--dodging topics related to himself while leaving his friend an opening to either elaborate or dismiss things back to superficial conversation with some humor. Whatever Vincent is feeling.

Who says these two aren't good conversationalists? They're both giving each other plenty of room to steer the subject wherever they want. Vincent nods but says nothing, at first, leaving them plenty of room to eat while he's considering his response. If they have to talk (and it feels like they do, in a place like this), at least it feels secondary to the food in front of them.

Eventually, he adds more thoughts onto his earlier blanket agreement.

"I think so. Guy's gotta be tired, though. Dunno how he does it."

He takes another sip of his drink--which already seems to be more empty than he'd like. What's the deal with these expensive, tiny beverages, anyway?

"But yeah, I think we're both relieved to have been able to talk about fuckin' anythin' without someone blowin' up or gettin' all defensive about shit, y'know? We ain't a hundred-percent peachy, but at least it kinda feels like we're on each other's sides again..."

After it leaves his mouth, he decides that that was... Probably a little more emotionally vulnerable than anyone actually wants to get right now, so he swerves a little. Back to something a little lighter, with a little smile to show he's mostly-joking.

"Though he keeps complainin' about my clothes an' he wants me to come to his weird house for dinner sometime, so we'll see how long that lasts..."

Edited 2024-11-18 18:36 (UTC)

Irahl does quickly discover that however much he'd normally be desperately avoiding a conversation in public, eating in silence here is worse.

He never knows how to be in places like this. It's rare enough just to be eating at a table that isn't in some mess hall (or spaceship kitchen), so being surrounded by paying customers and proper manners is a very alien experience. His best attempt at adapting consists of trying not to completely hunker over his plate, or unfeelingly devour his way through his meal just to get the task over with.

So, Irahl doesn't mind all that much when Vincent continues the conversation, even when it dips in and out of something that has some weight to it.

"'Tired,' yeah... Hopefully he's still in that welcoming mood after getting his shoulder chewed on by some anti-enchantment."

Sure, the guy hired him, but he knows he'd still be pretty salty about something like that.

While this is a pretty innocent comment from Irahl, it somehow causes three different, competing reactions from Vincent at once. None of them make it to his face at first, he just nods and has another bite of his food while he briefly sorts it all out.

"S'that his left shoulder?" He asks, as if that mattered even a little to what was just said. As if Seth had a favored shoulder and one means Irahl's fine and the other means he's fucked or something.

Yeah, Irahl does in fact find Vincent's response a little perplexing. He isn't often confused by the things that Vincent says, aside from being bewildered by his personality sometimes, so he assumes it's because he himself has missed something.

That being the case, after answering with an 'mhmm' while he's busy sipping his drink, Irahl follows it up a few beats later with a verbal, "Why?"

That's fair. It's a weird thing to say.

"Call it a hunch," he says, a bit cryptically. However, Vincent isn't Robin or any of Robin's weird, slimy friends, so he immediately feels weird not giving Irahl at least some explanation, and follows it up a second later, "...Or a weird twin thing. My shoulder was hurtin' weird the other day an' I'd been wonderin' if it's his fault."

But that does answer one question. He smirks, now speaking with certainty on the subject.

"But yeah, he'll be spiteful 'bout that for literally the rest of his life. In fact," he taps on the table with his finger for emphasis, "I bet you anythin' you're gonna get invited just because he thinks you wouldn't wanna go."

Hmm. This all puts a momentary pause on Irahl's breakfast-eating.

He hardly has time to dwell on the question of whether Vincent's shoulder-ache is just a coincidence or if he and Seth are truly so connected through some mysterious 'twin thing' that they can physically feel each other's pain, before the rest of what Vincent says steals his focus.

Where he'd been accepting of Seth's hypothetical spite a moment ago, something about Vincent's description fills him with a vague sense of dread. Somehow, he'd expected that spite to remain a violent sort, which he is well-equipped to handle. He had not thought about Seth maybe hitting him where it would hurt the most: in the social realm.

"...Uh-oh."

Irahl's sudden trepidation is enough to get Vincent to laugh.

"When I say he's scary I ain't talkin' about him fightin' shit."

Hey, better that Irahl learn here than when he's eventually trapped in some social situation as a twisted punishment for some perceived injustice. Vincent takes another bite of his food before clarifying, though--he doesn't want to scare Irahl too bad.

"But he also asked you to stab him so I don't thi--" Vincent stops, very suddenly, his expression turning to confusion and mild disgust. A second later, he pulls a succulent twig out of his mouth.

"...The fuck? S'this supposed to be in here?"

It... is a good thing that Vincent can't see, as Irahl quietly brings up a hand to thoroughly clamp down on any snort or chuckle that might otherwise break free.

Normally, he has a much better grasp on keeping a straight face, but he'd genuinely forgotten about his own sabotage by now, especially in the face of learning the true danger that Seth represents. Surprise is what nearly got him to crack.

As it is, he takes a few beats to make sure his voice shows no sign of the amusement that he almost let escape before he lowers his hand again.

"What is it?" he asks, convincingly--because he does want to know. It's the whole reason he'd pulled this stunt in the first place.

Poor Vincent and his lack of eyeballs. Even if he normally would have suspected some prank, that was years ago in his mind as well--so he doesn't suspect a thing.

"I don't fuckin' know," he frowns, tossing it onto the table. "It's fuckin' bitter... Gods, what's this place's obsession with puttin' twigs an' leaves in everything..."

Not for the first time this evening, he crosses his arms. His attention goes outward, listening for helpful staff who happen to be nearby. He sighs.

"Should I... Ask...?" He asks Irahl, in the tone of, 'should I even bother'? He half-expects they'd tell him he somehow ate some decorative part of greener that clearly shouldn't have been eaten. Wouldn't that be funny.

Even with how terrible of an idea it would be to encourage this charade further, Irahl is still so tempted to maybe suggest that Vincent try to complain his way into some free dessert.

The only thing that actually holds him back is the near-zero-percent chance it has of succeeding, and how quickly he himself would be implicated. He's pretty sure his good friend would actually punch him out in the middle of a fancy cafe if he let him get that far.

Not that he's going to go right out and admit anything, of course.

"Dunno. Kind of looks like the stuff in the middle of the table."

Vincent makes another disgruntled sound, hearing that he might have just tried to eat a normal houseplant or something. How the fuck would food prepared in a kitchen get a bit of the table plant in it...?

...Unless. Someone here already has a track record with dubious plant placement over drinks. Vincent slowly turns on Irahl, narrowing his eyes at him with suspicion
(though again, if it seems like he's making eye contact, is a complete and total accident). He points an accusing finger in Irahl's direction.

"...If I find out you put that in my bowl, I'm gonna sign myself up for another afternoon hidin' from the cops."

Again, it's a good thing that Vincent can't see, because Irahl lets himself break into a wide smirk when he's threatened with grievous bodily injury in the middle of this fancy cafe. Just absolutely delighted.

"Why would I do something like that?" he asks, as if the thought is ridiculous.

Really, it's a wild thing to accuse someone of.

The waiter had been making their way over to check up on their two extremely-tall, out-of-place guests, but they've suddenly managed to find several other people who need help before then. And some plants that need to be watered. All conveniently while said guests seem to be in the middle of something either dire or flirty, hard to tell from across the room, you know?

"'Cause you don't know what's good for ya'," replies Vincent, giving Irahl a warning prod in the chest before he leans back into his own space again. "Now, what the fuck was I talkin' about?"

Irahl obviously did it. It had to be him. But Vincent isn't actually that mad, at least not now that he's gotten a warning out--he just continues to look surly because he knows Irahl will think it's funny.

Irahl does think it's funny. He doesn't end up punched, or even pinned to a wall like a certain troublesome demigod had been recently, so he's calling it a successful prank. He also found out whether or not the centerpiece is edible. Mission accomplished all around.

"--Talking about how being threatening runs in the family," Irahl helpfully answers.

See, it's the perfect segue-way back to discussing the depths of Seth's spite.

"...Oh yeah. Right."

Vincent lets out a big, overdramatic sigh, and picks up his fork again. Pokes around in his bowl a couple of times, frowning at its contents even though he can't see them. Well, specifically because he can't see them.

"See? This is why I got trust issues," he says, obviously hesitant to actually take another bite. It could be full of more twigs. Or a nail or something. And if Irahl's dumb enough to pull that stunt again he really will shove him through one of these expensive glass windows, and then he really will have to run from the cops.

"But yeah, I was gonna say, he's... He holds a grudge but it's mostly because he wants shit to feel fair. And this sounded pretty fair. So my bet is on him cooking up some kind of... Minor hardship to make himself feel better, like makin' you look at his knick-knacks or somethin'."

Like a good friend, Irahl remorselessly returns to his meal as Vincent sulks.

Wow, there really are some nice flavors in here. He especially appreciates the smokiness that the name of the dish alludes to. It almost tastes better now than when he'd first started eating it. Good stuff.

"Guess that's fair. Somebody's got to look at them." And Vincent has dodged that responsibility by not having eyeballs, so it's up to him to bite the bullet.

Normally that'd get a more irritated response from Vincent (mostly because of the attention called to his lack of eyeballs), but instead the comment gets a weird, dark little chuckle. Vincent has suddenly remembered something.

"He's so pissed that I can't see..." He mutters, almost like it's to himself or something he isn't supposed to be saying. He's smirking because he finds it funny, but in a morbid and slightly-awful way.

He does not agree out-loud that Seth would probably be genuinely happy to have someone acknowledge the stuff he's collected, since his own brother couldn't really do it.

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