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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Maybe it's the fact that other people are around, which makes this inherently an unsafe space, but some self-consciousness begins to kick up as soon as Irahl catches himself emoting so much. However, the feeling barely gets started before Vincent's laughter stops it in its tracks. Anxiety doesn't stand a chance in the face of that.

"Any of the specials," he clarifies. He'll leave it to Vincent's judgement, being that he's the one who read the menu and all.

If Irahl hasn't figured this out by now, there's almost no public place they could go where he would like like the outgoing, emotional one when he's next to Vincent. He can get away with a laugh or two, the other man will drown them out with his own.

"All right, one... Special. Comin' up."

Vincent heads to the bar. He bumps into a couple of chairs. He apologizes again. He finds the mostly-clear path to the bar, starts talking to the bartender. Irahl can watch him do his signature 'I have no eyeballs' handwave while leaning on the bar. He'll have a moment to himself while Vincent procures... Something alcoholic, hopefully.

There is a moment there where Irahl does think to himself that it must take someone with next to no shame or sympathy to leave it to the blind guy to be the one to get up and handle the procurement of drinks, especially without any help or guidance. But Irahl is at peace with this realization.

So, he remorselessly settles into himself and lets his mind zone out a little, away from the pain under his ribs and the noise created by other people, by idly reading the upside-down menu propped up in the middle of the table while he waits.

It takes Vincent a little while to get back to their table for half a dozen reasons. One of them is that Vincent's got a bunch of questions because he can't see the menu. Another is that, once they settle on an order, the bartender makes friendly conversation with him while she gets their drinks together. Since the lunch rush has all but vanished, she's got no real reason to hurry.

The third and most important thing that takes time is Vincent getting back to the table with four cups in hand; he's walking a little slower so that he doesn't accidentally spill everywhere just by stubbing his toe on a chair leg or something.

Once he gets back, Irahl gets slid a glass with something amber colored and slightly bubbly in it. Vincent's got something darker with a lot of ice in it. One of the other glasses is filled with ice water. The last is filled with just ice.

"If you don't like it, we can switch," he explains, scooting back into his spot. But he thinks Irahl will like it. It isn't quite the stuff they found up in space, but it's similar.

By the time that Vincent gets back, Irahl has had some important acclimation time, giving his brain a break from interfacing with anyone or thinking about anything much at all. As much as being around Vincent causes only a fraction of the mental load that other people do, that amount is still greater than zero, so he still covets even small moments to himself when he can get them.

He is ready to engage again when a glass is finally slid in his direction. The glass with nothing but ice in it is a little perplexing, but his questions about it get put immediately on hold as he pulls the first glass closer to himself and is caught by a scent that he doesn't expect.

Almost every single time that he has ever been given something bubbly and amber in a tall glass, in all of his decades of life, it has been beer. So, when he smells something decidedly more spiced than that, he is compelled to take a taste.

"...Oh."

There is audible surprise in his voice, but he doesn't immediately elaborate. He's too busy taking a second sip to verify the first one.

Vincent listens for that second sip, craning his neck forward a little.

"How is it?" He asks, sounding hopeful, "The lady said it's a spicy one that folks seem to like..."

And though he's already said that he'll trade drinks if Irahl doesn't want what he's been given, he finds himself ready to get right back up and march back up to the counter if his friend has any major complaints. Maybe it's because this particular drink has been a long time coming, but he wants it to be right in a way he hadn't quite been expecting.

Maybe it's because he doesn't have the same sort of emotional attachment to drinking that either Vincent or Robin seem to have, but Irahl hadn't been thinking of this one as being of any particular significance. So, his answer is just as honest as it would ever be, and yet Vincent can detect a subtle wondering tone in his voice.

"It's good," he muses. He's actually surprised by how much he likes it.

And just about when he's wondering if the very-good drink selection had been intentional or happenstance, his attention is brought back to the cup with only ice in it.

"What's this?"

A relief to hear. He's done a good job. He actually settles back into the booth now, leaning all the way back against his seat, finally feeling ready to relax a little himself.

"Oh, that's... Wait, hang on--" Okay, he leans forward again so that he can get his hand on the cup and give it a little twist. Just listening to which of the two cups it is by how much sloshing he can hear. And then he leans back, for real.

"Yeah, that one's yours. Just ice."

He's remembered the ice thing so well that he's ironically forgotten his usual nicety of pretending it matters to put a little bit of water in it too.

Edited (Vincent used too many words) 2024-12-04 04:13 (UTC)

"Just ice?"

Vincent has in fact remembered the ice thing so well that--also ironically--he may have remembered it even better than Irahl has noticed it. He scoots the ice a little closer to himself, and Vincent can't see him now glancing between both of his glasses.

"What for?"

"Stayin' cool," he replies, casually. As worried as he'd suddenly been about the drink, getting his best friend a cup of ice was such a no-brainer that he hardly has any thoughts or feelings about it. He just did it because that's what Irahl likes.

"We were walkin' around in the sun a lot," he explains further, reaching around for his own cup of ice-water, "An with your liver fucked up, don't wanna risk a hangover."

Stay hydrated, my man.

He... is he the weird one here? He has never been presented with just a cup of ice before. Maybe it's to put in his drink, but there isn't currently any room in his glass... and Vincent has actual ice water, but he also already has ice in his alcoholic drink, so...

Yeah, he does feel like he must be the weird one here for not seeing a line of logic that Vincent clearly does.

He could press the issue, but being that he's pretty sure that he doesn't have a leg to stand on and tease from, he just pretends that he understands, and keeps any further questions to himself.

He'll stick to the glass that he does understand, for now. But, just wait until those cubes start to melt, and the siren song of the ice will become too much to resist.

Vincent can kind of tell that something about the ice is confusing Irahl, but he can't imagine what it could be. Not that he tries very hard. It just doesn't seem like a big deal, so if Irahl's not going to chase it, neither is he.

It's like they keep saying, they don't want it to be weird. Vincent decides to just keep things moving so that he can focus on relaxing now that they're finally here.

"...D'you get sunburned ever?" Vincent suddenly asks, voicing a curiosity that floated through his mind, "Been worried I'm gonna look like a boiled cave-krill come tomorrow."

Great. If they both pretend it didn't happen, it never happened. The foundation of their friendship.

Luckily, Irahl's drink is very easy to disappear into. It's so rare that he drinks something because he actually likes it, it's striking him as quite the novelty. He can't help but think back on sampling a menagerie of space-booze in what now feels like an odd, recurring dream he'd once had. It's strange to have a little of that experience brought into the waking world.

Then, Vincent asking idle questions adds to the familiarity of it.

"Not yet." He's pretty sure he has never been sunburned in all the time spent roaming mountains of sun-bleached concrete, but maybe a desert will accomplish the impossible. And without actually looking to see if it's true or not as he sips his drink, he comments, "Think you're already getting pink."

"No..." Vincent sounds doubtful, though he does immediately and self-consciously move to touch the back of his neck with his free hand, "...You're joking."

It's clear that he's only half-sure that Irahl is joking. At least part of him is already primed for it to be true.

"...Am I?" He doubles back and starts crumbling immediately, becoming increasingly worried that he's going to wake up tomorrow barely able to move, "Damn it, not again..."

Well, see... he'd been considering relieving his friend of panic after only a few moments of teasing, especially with how he had just gotten called out for being an ass. But then Vincent goes and says something like 'not again,' and it catches Irahl's interest too much to just call it off immediately.

If Vincent had been able to see, he'd have caught Irahl hiding the threat of a smirk behind his drink, but alas.

"'Not again?' Sounds bad."

Tell him more.

Oh, Vincent has absolutely no problems extrapolating on his own regrets for the sake of holding up a conversation. He rubs his neck a little more, convinced that he can feel his skin doing that weird, irritated tingling thing it does when a burn is starting.

"Oh, man, the first time I came here... They told us not to stay out in the sun for too long 'cause we'd get burned. An' then me an' some other guys didn't listen. The next day? My neck was just... Completely red..."

He gestures to his neck and his shoulders, but the gesture devolves quickly into just sort of indicating his entire body. The reminder is what finally gets him to find his own drink and drag it closer.

"My fuckin' scalp was burned. Started blisterin'... It was awful. An' that ain't even as bad as the guy who got actual sunstroke." He shakes his head at his younger self and sighs with the regret of a learned man. "So that's why I don't fuck around with the sun, man. That thing's crazy."

It's really that last bit that gets him. Vincent couldn't sound more like a cave-dwelling troll if he'd tried. At first, the amused sound he offers as he sips his drink is entirely at Vincent's expense (and he still doesn't feel bad about leaving him to wonder if a horrible burn is looming on the horizon).

After a few seconds more of thought, however, something occurs to him that he hasn't thought about in a very long time. And what he finds even more interesting than the resurfacing of the memory itself, is the fact that it doesn't feel like it weighs very much now. Maybe being trapped in space-jail and pulled around through space and time puts some things into a different perspective.

So, he shares it without much hesitation.

"Yeah... think I was scared of it for a while."

It takes Vincent a second... But only a second. He might think of Irahl as a surface-dweller first, but he remembers quickly that he didn't start there.

"I think I warmed up to it pretty fast..." He stops mid-thought for a brief chuckle, "Heh, warmed..."

Okay, that was dumb. Back on track.

"But my brother..." He points at Irahl around his cup, "I remember him gettin' spooked by it for a while too."

Finally, he takes a sip of his drink. He doesn't have quite the reaction that Irahl did, since he knows what he got and is familiar with the ingredients, but he still can't help but smile a little as he tastes something normal and more familiar than the pink monstrosities he was downing upstairs.

Irahl can't deny that it's pretty entertaining to think that serious-faced, has-been-an-adult-his-entire-life Seth had been the one to be spooked by the sun. He considers commenting on it, or about the fact that it's pretty ironic that the one who hadn't been a fan of the sun ended up putting down roots in the desert while the other one had crawled back underground, but he thinks better of it. He recognizes the fact that he should probably space out how many teasing comments he makes about his new employer.

So, he only allows himself a single, amused huff, before swerving back to lob another stupid comment at his friend instead.

"Seems safer than warming up to it... almost to death."

Sunburn joke.

Unfortunately for him, Vincent does nothing to encourage Irahl to stop poking fun at him. The prod gets a quiet snort out of him as he holds his drink near his face.

"Hey, never said I was the smart twin..."

His mind wanders to wondering whether or not his skin is cooking as they speak... And he finally has to just force himself away from thinking about it.

"It can't be worse than that first time. We didn't even really go outside."

And then belatedly, he remembers something--and holds his drink out towards Irahl with a growing smile.

"Oh, right. Cheers, man. To Seth bein' a good guy even if he's also a stubborn prick. An' to you actually doin' some work around here."

Many glasses have been offered toward him in cheers, and nearly just as many have been blatantly ignored. So, Vincent should feel very proud that he has earned being one of the very few that Irahl has deigned to accept.

"Here's to me getting off my lazy ass," he returns, before clinking his glass against Vincent's.

He'll comment on that and not on Seth being a good guy, especially in reference to him fronting the bill, just in case calling more attention to it somehow jinxes them--either now or later once Jandru informs him of how his brother and new employee have been gallivanting around the city.

Vincent loves that he followed through on the dumb joke. And something about that makes him realize, fully, that he really is here. They're finally doing this specific thing he's been wanting to do for ages. This probably all started as just another dumb thing he said to keep them hopeful of returning to life outside of space-jail, but despite all odds its somehow become a reality.

So after a chuckle, he settles in and has a couple more quiet sips of his drink, thinking fondly of his friend and how good things have been with him around. He starts feeling a little emotional, actually. It's been a long time since he's been this happy, he doesn't really know what to do with it.

"...Gods, still can't believe you're here, man." He laughs to himself, letting some of the pressure off with a few words. "Maybe someday it'll stop bein' a surprise an' I'll stop bringin' it up every couple hours."

Once more, Vincent does that thing that he does, where he pulls Irahl's attention up from only putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other and forces him to actually focus on the present. His mind is of course always at least a little resistant to the effort, but normally it's because the present is too unpleasant or challenging to want to do so for long. These days, it's the fact that things have been good that has been overwhelming.

If Vincent is going to dwell on it for a little bit, though, the least he can do is join in a little himself... even if seeing the look on Vincent's face makes him feel some kind of rattled that he can't parse.

When he lets himself think about the fact that this is somehow all real, he suddenly remembers something that had slipped his mind almost immediately after it had happened. And normally he would keep this sort of thing under tight lock and key, but Vincent has always had a way of compelling him to share.

"...You know, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was back home."

He manages to say it lightly enough, even though what he doesn't say is how the pang of it had been just like when he used to wake up thinking he was somehow still in the lab. He doesn't say that waking up in pain, in a darkened room, had really made him believe for one crushing moment that he was injured and alone, holed up in that room they'd put him in after they'd taken what few freedoms he'd had.

"Couldn't believe it when I looked around and saw I was really still here."

And when he trails off this time, what he doesn't say was how absolutely delirious with relief and joy he'd been when he'd rolled over and seen Vincent sleeping obliviously beside him.

So, yeah. He gets it.

At the very least, it's good to know that it's not just him. They're in this together in a lot of different ways. He finds himself fighting a sudden urge to reach over and... He doesn't know, hold his hand or something. But even Vincent knows that'd be too intimate a gesture for Irahl, even if they weren't in public.

He assures himself that it's just him not knowing what to do with himself. It's probably his brain just tossing up whatever random ideas come to mind as he fishes around for some way to say something that he's been having trouble putting to words for a couple of weeks now.

In the end, he just nods and says, "Well, glad you are."

And after a little more thought (and a couple of sips of his drink), with the sound of chatter and vague music beginning to feel further away, he adds on another point that's occurred to him many times since Irahl suddenly showed up in Skeleton City.

"M'hopin' we don't get separated again, but in case we do--" He smiles, a bit of that rare playful energy returning, "--We oughta make sure you have a real good time over here. Stockpile ya' with good times to last 'til I find ya' again."

The fact that Irahl is experiencing a similar sort of strange restlessness that trends in Vincent's direction makes the thing that his friend says even worse to hear. Especially with a smile like that? All that optimism that is somehow both sad and playful at the same time?

He can feel something inside of him sink a little. He's glad that Vincent can't see, because he's sure that something must have flickered across his face before he gets a hold of it again.

There's no chance he can be convincing with optimism, so he leans on someone who he can always rely on: wry humor.

"Guess we have to."

He will at least agree to that one, but it has very little to do with making sure that he himself has enough fun to tide him over in case they never see each other again. Then, of course he must let at least a little of the grim side of things show, also spun as if it's a joke.

"Got to have something to think about while bored and hiding from the law."

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