You don't wanna go there, kid

[dodgyallround]

Midgar was due for completion in little over a week, or thereabouts. Zexion had got in touch with Lexaeus, which Xigbar had expected, and Lexaeus had passed on the message, which Xigbar had not expected. The gist of it was simple enough; stay away from Midgar. The place was about to get very briefly lethal, and from the sound of it, very brief in

Comments

[gotitmemorised]

Of course, the law of unfortunate coincidences states that one of them had to have seen it and, in this case, it was Axel. Given that he lived in Rabanastre and wasn't actually an official member of the Clan, he wasn't limited to picking up jobs through them. He had, at last, been registered as a Hunter, so he was legally permitted to hunt Marks solo and, sometimes, jobs appeared on other boards in other pubs that didn't make it as far as the Sandsea. He tended to check those out before looking over the board there -- there was usually more choice

[dodgyallround]

It was immediately obvious that Xigbar had something on his mind, because he was neither asleep, nor feigning it. His usual position was splayed back, eye closed, appearing unaware, even though he could quickly prove he wasn't when it turned out he'd been earwigging for the past half an hour

[gotitmemorised]

Axel didn't miss the fact that Xigbar's eyes were actually open. That was a bit unusual, given that he didn't usually go out of his way to give away or broadcast any kind of advantage he might have in any situation. He didn't think much of it.

"Hey," he replied, putting his drink down. "Slow day?"

He put the bill beside his drink. It was rolled up and would probably require a little more thought before he went through with signing up for it, but it was certainly his intention if the cost-to-pay ratio came out favourably.

[dodgyallround]

"Same old, same old," Xigbar answered, following it up with a mouthful of booze. It was a blatant lie, of course, but that was a given with Xigbar anyway; the tricky bit was knowing him well enough to know that.

"Good to see you're staying useful," he said, once he'd swallowed, nodding towards the rolled up bill Axel had with him. Axel was a hunter, so a bill was what any rolled pieces of paper on his person were most likely to be.

Xigbar still didn't let the others know what he got up to for a living.

[innatelunacy]

Saix sauntered in some time later. He'd been out wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem, taking out anything big and mean enough in the vicinity. As usual, he'd come back with a lot of loot, which didn't earn him fantastic amounts of money, but Saix treated destroying the local wildlife like a hobby; any money it made him was nice, but not the point of the exercise

[gotitmemorised]

Axel was sitting at a table with his arms folded and his drink untouched next to him. There was no condensation on the outside of the glass -- it had been left long enough to get warm. He didn't return Saix's nod. He probably hadn't noticed him do it.

He looked a little ...on edge.

It wasn't amazingly obvious to most people, but if you happened to know him well enough, it would be fairly clear that the behaviour wasn't down to boredom.

[innatelunacy]

Saix noticed; it was hard not to. He murmured quietly to Vexen, knowing full well that his husband would prefer to stick his nose in a book anyway, telling him, "I'm going to get a drink," and then he stood up, and walked over towards Axel.

"Something wrong?" He asked, his voice low and level.

[gotitmemorised]

When Axel looked up, it was as though his mind had been elsewhere. He blinked a few times and shook his head, trying to get back into the mindset required for dealing with other people. That wasn't quite so easy after losing himself in his own thoughts.

"Huh? Oh... nah," he said, distractedly. "Yeah... I..." He sighed somewhat harshly. "Doesn't matter."

[empiricism]

Vexen, even now, made his opinion regarding Axel quite clear. The heart he had gained since arriving on Spira may have softened him slightly, but he was as stubborn as a mule and had a long memory. Due to that, he wasn't about to forgive Axel for what he had done to him. By rights, he shouldn't forgive Saix either, and hadn't, but he could put that aside and use it against him when he was angry. Axel wasn't so 'lucky'. He, unfortunately, got treated to all of the vitriol that their Nobody relationship left behind and Vexen didn't care one iota about the fact that hating him for something he did without a heart was illogical.

He was allowed to be a little bit illogical at times.

As such, he sat on the other side of the room, nursing a drink and reading while his Saix talked in hushed tones with Axel. He pretended to ignore him entirely when he came back over and simply turned a page with what could be taken as a pointed display of annoyance at his return.

[innatelunacy]

Saix was familiar with this treatment from Vexen. He got it when he'd bought the wrong teabags (it had been news to him that there was such a thing as the wrong teabags since they all contained tea, but apparently tea was more complex than that, and it was after saying as much that he'd been ignored in favour of a book for the rest of the day), or put a book away that Vexen had been using, (really, no, really, yes, despite the fact that it had been sat open on the same page for three days on the bedside cabinet, it had been left there for a reason and not forgotten about, and Vexen did not appreciate the insinuation or that Saix had lost his page), or tried to distract Vexen from a book, especially around the full moon (and that went double if it was in the aftermath of a row about one of the other reasons for him getting the treatment). It meant that Saix had done wrong, and had ground to make up to get back into Vexen's favour, unless he really liked the couch

[empiricism]

Vexen looked up from his book after marking his page with his finger. Despite the dire message, he took his time getting to the end of a paragraph and made no effort to hurry himself. When he did, he stared at Saix with a surprising amount of venom in his green eyes.

"And?" He spat some with the word to go with it.

[innatelunacy]

There was no concern in Vexen's tone. Saix hadn't expected any; he thought Axel's venture was foolhardy at best, needlessly self sacrificing at worst. If Vexen had been openly concerned for Midgar's welfare, Saix would have had to be concerned that there was something wrong with his own reactions.

"Axel intends on travelling there to rescue someone," he said. Vexen was making his annoyance very plain, so Saix was prepared for a bad reaction to the next bit he'd have to say, and wanted to delay it a little.

He was under no illusions that Vexen would object to Axel travelling to a location that was about to be destroyed.