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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"Boy, that don't sound familiar at all," Vincent says sarcastically. He couldn't see the other guy's gesture, but he more-or-less imagined it anyway.

Then, with a bit of a chuckle, he starts feeling around in his pants pockets for something. These pockets are not quite as fathomless as the pockets of his signature coat, but the sheer scale of them still seems to attract a surprising amount of stuff.

"See, that sounds like the kinda place... Where people get mad at you if you walk through the wrong door in a museum, y'know?"

He finds what he's looking for and sets it halfway between the two of them. It's his deck of cards. He has a lot of fun just chatting with his buddy, but he figures having something to do might take a little of the pressure off of Irahl to keep a conversation going.

"Or in a civic building," he comments with the kind of specificity that comes from firsthand experience. So, Vincent is welcome to imagine Irahl as the 'Vincent' in this scenario, sounding the alarms as he looms like an out-of-place stormcloud wandering through polished hallways.

Meanwhile, Vincent knows that the card deck has been seen and acknowledged by the sound of Irahl's drink being pushed off to the side, out of the field of play.

They may have been apart for three months, but Vincent still knows that sound by heart. He moves his drinks aside as well, picks the cards back up, and works on shuffling.

The idea of Irahl looming through buildings and casually (obliviously) setting off alarms is very funny, though it makes him think of other issues he has with fancy places...

"Y'know, anywhere that's mostly made of glass is kind of a problem for me," he says, "Even before I couldn't see. It's a really dumb thing to make all your buildings out of."

When Irahl goes to move his glass of ice aside, he takes a quick moment to jingle the cubes around without even thinking about it. Maybe an idle gesture while thinking; maybe subconsciously wanting to start chomping on those bad boys.

For now, this glass gets pushed aside with the other one, waiting in the wings.

"Why? ...Afraid you'll trip and end up outside, twenty floors up?"

He really does have to just make a guess at Vincent's reasoning here, since all glass buildings do for him is make his sniping work easier.

"Hah, I mean... Always a danger," he chuckles, starting to deal out cards to the both of them, "But it's more that I just... Break shit."

They've played cards a few times since their time on the Eclipse, mostly on the journey here--but Vincent still feels a spark of gratitude that these cards are made of something that doesn't roll or stick together when he deals it.

"If I do get sent to your city, any suggestions?" And to clarify that he doesn't mean in a survival sense, he adds, "Like... Food places, bars? Uh..."

There's a slight pause as he tries to remember literally any recommendation Irahl has ever given and comes up short--possibly because Irahl hasn't exactly had glowing reviews of his neighborhood or anything--so he calls on the one thing he can remember...

"...Cheap open-air apartments?"

Irahl is also experiencing the simple joy of holding cards, though his is more due to Vincent's dot-language. He has been enjoying learning it the hard way, even though it's slow going. As each card is dealt out, he runs through the routine he'd developed on the way here of idly running his thumb over each one as he adds it to his hand, attempting to read what is punched there without looking.

He isn't very successful at it, but he doesn't mind.

"Get some cheap elven food under the overpass," he's able to answer without hesitation, as it's literally the only thing he can think to suggest. As a general rule, he doesn't especially enjoy establishments of any kind.

As for the second question, he makes a thoughtful sound as if seriously mulling over the options.

"Know of some nice units if you like heights and elemental storms. If not, you got to fight the gargoyles for a ground floor vacancy."

Vincent snaps his fingers at the food suggestion, committing it to memory. He still doesn't know what 'elven' means, but it sounds like a group of people so he figures it's one of those things he could probably figure out if he got there.

"Hm... M'not a big fan of storms, but how bad're... Gargoyles? S'that like a...?"

Well, this is a question where he definitely doesn't want to ask if that's a kind of people or, you know, a giant rodent or something.

At least he isn't surprised anymore when Vincent doesn't recognize creatures and other phenomena that he'd thought were pretty universal. Didn't know what harpies were, and Irahl hasn't seen hide-nor-metaphorical-hair of gargoyles since he'd been teleported out of his city, so it checks out.

There's something actually kind of entertaining about explaining things that are normally too mundane for him to be interested in. He sees gargoyles as little more than giant, ill-tempered street dogs, but maybe someone who doesn't have to clean up the trouble they cause will get a kick out of them.

"Big monster kind of made out of stone. Might be fun to try out that sword of yours on."

...In fact, the more that he thinks about it, the more he realizes that he would love to see Vincent fight a gargoyle.

"Huh," Vincent remarks, running his fingers over the punched holes of his cards. He used to make an effort to at least appear like he's looking at his hand around friends, to not weird them out more than needed, but that habit fell to the wayside around Irahl pretty quickly. Now, from the outside, it probably looks like he's staring at something past Irahl and vaguely ceiling-ward while his hand independently slaps down an opening card on the table.

"They fast?" He asks, because he's been mulling over the idea of fighting them too. He's fought things similar, but he's trying to figure out how they compare. The whole thought exercise is nice; reminds him of a lot of conversations about nothing important they used to have on the ship.

Irahl is never in a hurry. He takes his time before placidly placing a card down, though it's not due to paying more attention to the conversation or thinking about his turn. It's because he's taking advantage of his current sobriety by still trying to read the cards without looking. When he gets tipsy, reading is the first skill to go--regardless of whether he's using his eyes or his hands.

"Not while they're chewing on something," he comments, though he doesn't share yet that it works best if the thing they're chewing on is an annoying and immortal friend. He'll hold onto that piece of advice a little bit longer.

"Worth it for a ground-floor apartment though."

Maybe it's because Irahl brought up the subject of chewing on something, but Vincent start wondering if he ought to order something from the kitchen. Miraculously, the power-greens lunch and mountain of sugar he ate after already feel like a distant memory. Or a fever dream, in the case of the desserts.

"Huh..." He comments again, seeming to consider it despite the fact that it will probably never happen. Then, with a smirk, he unknowingly tees Irahl up perfectly, "Well, I already feel like I gotta fight Robin for my apartment half the time, what's a couple big stone monsters, right?"

Well, the opening is right there, isn't it? Robin is magically summoned into the conversation, and the memories of gargoyle-hunting with the demigod puts a smirk on Irahl's face.

Of course he can't go straight at it, though, when there are several potential directions he could take stretching out before him.

"...Should ask him about them sometime," he suggests after musing for a moment. The smirk is still there in his voice. "He spent a lot of time with them."

"Oh yeah...?" Vincent asks, honestly curious until he has a couple of seconds to catch the tone in Irahl's voice. "...I'll do that. An' I assume if he tries to pass it off as nothin' I've got it on good authority that it's somethin', yeah?"

He plays a card, he drinks his drink. He barely notices that there are people around them. Visitors will continue to filter in and out, with new people inevitably stopping to get a look at the two massive guys in the corner here and there, but the nice thing about not having eyes anymore is that most of that flies right under his radar these days.

"Yeah. He even got them to play fetch."

Which, telling Robin to 'play fetch' might have been a thing that Irahl once said before bumping him off a ledge to land amongst the playful creatures. He's hoping that Robin will have remembered enough around all of the head trauma to know what Vincent is talking about when he brings it up.

Irahl mostly leaves the topic there, happy to have set a petty trap for their mutual acquaintance to fall into sometime later. Vincent can tell by his tone of voice that he's in a good mood. Especially in this dark and unpretentious space, he's feeling even more content than he had up in the flower cafe. He notices the hesitations and the stares around them, but it's currently pretty easy not to care. He makes sure that his scarf is tucked close around his neck and he keeps his gloves on, but otherwise ignores the other patrons and just plays his cards.

Vincent asks a couple other questions about gargoyles, complains about how hard it is to actually pull off that slice-a-car-in-half trick of his, and even asks Irahl if he's ever worried about rolling out of bed and off the side of a building in that only-three-walls apartment of his. Vincent hasn't yet caught on that Irahl hasn't been in his own place for months now, and maybe Irahl tells him. Maybe he doesn't.

Either way, he's plenty entertained between snippets of curious conversation and playing a few rounds of cards. And the drinks being way better than the ones upstairs (in his opinion) help. He switches to hard alcohol after the first drink so that he can go slowly, not as many trips up and down where he could bump into people and cause a scene.

Later, he comes back with their third drink and a basket of potato wedges (a food understood and beloved in all realities), but he has a slightly more serious demeanor as he slides everything onto the table.

"Hey, I can't see--" He says, voice lowered like he doesn't want to be overheard, "Is the bartender cute?"

He doesn't realize what a loaded question this is; he just knows Irahl is his bro and that on his own, he's got no chance of guessing.

It probably started with Irahl's comments about their buddy playing fetch, but the sarcasm is currently riding quite high. He makes comments about his living situation back home and answers questions about gargoyles, but it's hard to tell how serious anything he says is.

This trend continues when Irahl fields Vincent's furtive question while sliding his next drink and the basket of potatoes closer to himself.

It's pretty obvious that he doesn't so much as glance toward the bar before he answers.

"Depends how many missing teeth you still find cute."

"Damn dude!"

Vincent has to laugh. It caught him by surprise, both because of how fast he said it and because it wasn't at all what he'd pictured--and those are the kinds of things that get him to laugh the most. He slides back into his seat, momentarily torn between whether or not to believe him and whether or not to be offended.

"...What if I said four's a hard limit, huh?" He ends up joking, further sliding the cups and tray of food he'd gathered into place on the table. "Where'd we be then?"

He doesn't mean it and after that pretty punchy reception, he's not sure he's interested in finding out. He's feeling out the space, here.

It's a good reaction. Irahl feels pretty satisfied with that one.

So, he finally gives the bar a cursory glance. The bartender is easy enough to spot, and he assumes she's considered conventionally attractive... Probably.

He does wonder to himself if there's an answer he might give that would end up in Vincent getting distracted or spending more time over there when retrieving the next round of drinks. And that would be... fine... just different from the fun, comfortable time they're having right now.

More sarcasm it is, then! And Vincent can do with it what he will. It's not the response guys would normally have, but it is very Irahl.

"Distracts from the warts, honestly."

Just trolling his blind friend. It's fine.

Okay, now he can tell that Irahl's fucking with him. He was not so invested in this idea that his feelings are hurt or anything, but he does immediately internalize a valuable lesson: don't ask Irahl about chicks.

"All right, all right..." He chuckles, good-naturedly, "Forget I said anything."

Fortunately for Irahl, his continued sarcasm is going to get Vincent to stay at the table longer and not take any chances with the flirty bartender. He grabs a couple of fries before he picks his latest hand of cards back up, and soon there's a change of subject on the table.

"Oh, kinda... Changed their recipe," he muses with his mouth full, "Used to be squishier..."

Irahl is absolutely neutral on the fact that Vincent has decided to stay and focus his attention here. In fact, he is so impartial that he mentally repeats this fact to himself a couple of times.

Likewise, it is out of pure ambivalence that he feels relaxed and content enough in this moment to bring his drink with him as he settles more comfortably back in his seat.

It often takes Irahl an extended period of time to become acclimated enough in a setting to move from casually slouching over his drink to casually slouching back with it, and in many instances, he never gets there. However, for one reason or another, spending time with this particular friend usually brings out that much more honest state of relaxation at some point during the course of hanging out. Vincent can hear that shift now as Irahl sits back like a normal person who doesn't look like they're ready to stand and leave at a moment's notice.

"Not just too used to cave shrimp?"

And just like that, Vincent puts the interaction behind them. He's already a little iffy about hitting on people while they're working anyway, but he can tell that Irahl's starting to really settle back in his seat, and he doesn't want to go and disrupt something as hard-earned as that.

So he moves on. The bartender will stay a mystery and he'll keep talking about potato wedges.

"Nah man, cave shrimp s'posed to be softer than these. Most people don't eat 'em with the crunchy part still on." He chuckles, tosses a card down. Irahl's move.

Both in regards to the conversation and the card game at hand, Irahl coolly counters Vincent's play without hesitation.

"Most people can't handle it."

He then reaches out to pull the basket of potatoes closer to himself, even though his arms are so long that he'd already been able to reach them where Vincent had left them. It more serves as a punctuation than anything.

He begins snacking while Vincent works on taking his turn, but he gets one bite in before a thought occurs to him.

"Wait. You sure they changed their recipe, or you thinking of the ones we made?"

Because even the most successful of their misadventures in making fries out of reconstituted potato flakes and extruded protein had been considerably squishier than these bad boys.

There can't have been many people in Irahl's life that get his sense of humor and comedic timing the way that Vincent does. He tried to poke a little fun at his friend and got back the perfect response. He comes dangerously close to laughing mid-sip, and just barely avoids making a mess of his drink.

"Can't argue that..."

While he's working on finding his next play, Irahl's got another comment... And Vincent's eyes go wide with recognition despite him not looking at anything. To think, he'd nearly forgotten about some of their potato experiments...

"You mean the wet chunks?" He asks, grinning with some incredulity, "Or the flat guys that crumbled an' nearly set the place on fire?"

It's true that there have been painfully few people who've been really tuned-in to Irahl's subtle brand of humor, instead of only catching most of the sarcasm and leaving Irahl to laugh to himself at the rest. It's an arrangement that he has always been perfectly fine with--especially as his humor had started out being appreciated by no one--but he has to admit that there's something extremely satisfying about having someone who almost every one of his jokes land with. The smirks and chuckling he receives are themselves contagious. It's a nice feedback loop.

"Those were chips," he patiently corrects in reference to the 'flat guys.'

Circling back to the first guess, there is no tonal shift in his voice, but the slight emphasis that he places on one word in particular does all the work for him.

"They weren't that wet."

"The chips, sorry, sorry..." He waves his handful of cards a little as if to clear the air of his obvious mistake, entertained that Irahl is still dead-set on referring to those flat nightmares as 'chips'. If that's the bit, he'll give them the respect they only marginally deserve.

That second bit, though... He can't let that go as easily.

"Right. On the outside they weren't that wet. An' on the inside they were a soup."

Okay, they truly weren't that wet, but this is fun and it feels again like the stupid conversations they'd have on the Eclipse, late at night when they were both tired but unwilling to sleep.

"That's not what I'm talkin' about, these fries used to be..." He feels around on the table for the basket, but he's forgotten that Irahl moved them closer to himself and is momentarily distracted by wondering where they got off to.

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