It's hard to find true equilibrium.

[thesilentstorm]

Lindblum was, in Lumi's opinion, a singularly awful city.

Built atop a mountain, or possibly a cliff, it bore the sort of architecture that made it amply clear that it had been added to over time, that it had started off much smaller and had grown, almost organically, outwards and then upwards, like a particularly unpleasant fungus of mismatched brick and tile all contained within the immense castle's fortified walls.

Lumi's nose had wrinkled as they made the approach to the Falcon's Gate via airship. Even from a distance he could see that, without more space for the city to crawl beyond the walls, as most seemed to when they outgrew a castle's ramparts, it had just gotten ... taller. Idly, he had wondered how it would fare in the event of an earthquake.

Once the airship had docked and he and Marluxia had disembarked, he decided that the city was even worse than it had looked from their approach. The winding streets and irregular buildings did little but compound the fact that the city was not purpose-built. Some of the houses leaned like drunkards and some of them had larger, over-hanging upper floors, as though they had been added to at a later date by a less skilled builder. It looked disorganised, ramshackle and untidy.

With any luck, they wouldn't be there long.

They were in the city on a mission, or, at least, a favour. In deference to the alliance he had made with the most recently recruited of his old ... "colleagues", Marluxia had agreed to make a trip to Even's old home to pick up some items that he hadn't thought to bring with him on his would-be temporary relocation to Daguerreo. It wasn't safe for him to go himself, on any front, and Marluxia had the freedom of movement accorded to an established and voluntarily joined member of Clan Khamja.

Lumi stood in the street outside the Air Cab station, a frown on his face at the feel of the uneven cobbled floor under the soles of his shoes. It was a warm day, but it was growing clear that Summer was on its way out in this part of the world. The breeze that blew down the street carried upon it the scent of woodsmoke, hanging baskets and the promise of rain. It was, despite the pleasant day, cool enough to make Lumi stiffen where he stood. He scowled, looking up. The sky was, at least, still blue, though grey clouds were visible in the distance.

He looked to Marluxia for direction. It was he who had the address of Even's old residence.

Comments

[gracefuldahlia]

Contrary to Lumi's opinion of Lindblum, Marluxia found it quaintly charming. It was clearly an old city, that had bowed to the inevitabilities of increased demand for housing and work by adding on to its existing infrastructure wherever there was room to do so. Space wasn't wasted in Lindblum; the city no longer had the space to waste.

It had been an informative few weeks for Marluxia. Firstly there was the fact that Vexen, now regularly going by Even but some habits died hard, had allied himself with Skite well enough to travel with them. Not only to travel with them, in fact, but also to return in one piece, having earned the respect of some of them. Particularly the Summoners, it seemed.

It had been an informative trip for Vexen, which had also made it a useful one for Marluxia. He had, apparently, witnessed an Arrancar open a Garganta, he'd even traveled through it. In concept they weren't dissimilar to the corridors of darkness the Nobodies had once used, and found closed off to them on their arrival on Spira. The only real difference between them was that, unlike the corridors, the garganta could only be used to travel within the confines of Spira.

This had not presented an issue to either Vexen, or Zexion, both of whom had seen the potential benefit of a mode of behind the scenes transport that they could utilise from anywhere.

It made journeys shorter too. To an extent. It could not be used to make a journey of a thousand miles in a few steps, but it could be used to traverse a long and winding road as the crow flew. Or as the Hollow traipsed, to be wholly accurate.

Getting to Lindblum to hold up Marluxia's offer to retrieve some of Vexen's personal effects had required the airships. The journey could have been made using a portal, Marluxia still thought of them as that, and even Vexen and Zexion slipped in and out of that old habit, switching between thorough accuracy and the familiar terminology at will, but it would be easier to transport things back by airship, and why not travel in relative comfort to begin with?

On arrival, Lindblum put Marluxia in mind of a rabbit warren, but there was a certain charm to the place, and a certain cultural stuffiness that Marluxia could see fitting Vexen. Saix too, if one considered his clipboard wielding side ahead of his inner wild animal.

He'd made sure to get precise directions from Vexen. Wandering an unfamiliar city didn't appeal to Marluxia, especially one in which other former members of the Organization had set up their new home.

"This way," he'd told Lumi, and led him down the cobbled and twisting streets of Lindblum towards the place Vexen had previously lived. Autumn was on its way in this part of the world, and Marluxia smiled, faintly. This was the season of apples and blackberries, which, fresh from the plant, were pleasures Lumi would not know.

Education may be in order, amusing as it was to see him scowl at the sky as if threatening it against even thinking about dumping water on him.

He led Lumi along the streets towards the address they'd been given, keeping one eye on the mismatched architecture as they went. There was a certain smug pleasure in getting to poke around Vexen's former home.

[thesilentstorm]

"Mmn," Lumi said, giving a nod.

The district wasn't as busy as Lumi had thought it would be. There were people, of course, but as soon as they headed off the main street and into smaller roads the bustle died off somewhat. The temperature dropped sharply as they headed into the shade of narrower streets.

As they walked, the smells changed. The air felt less fresh off the beaten path and the buildings close on either side blocked out breezes and kept the air from circulating. More than once he caught the sour, warm odour of a beer-soaked carpet drifting out of the open door of a pub and the sweet, cloying scent of burning herbs or incense escaping from apothecaries through the cracks in doors or windows.

He spied people standing around at the far ends of the streets they passed, saw (and smelled) homeless beggars hunched in doorways and couldn't fail to notice those who were furtively selling wares out of coats and cases from less conspicuous locations, presumably to avoid the attention of guards or police, whichever applied.

It was populated enough that Lumi didn't think it was likely they'd be targeted for any reason and he walked with the air of somebody unworried by his surroundings and those in it. Nevertheless, he was glad of his concealed weapons. He had left his sword at home, something he didn't usually do and that left a curious sense of unease in him in spite of his dislike of it, but he knew what he had brought would suffice should anybody see fit to make today the day they made the worst decision of their life.

The area of Even's former home wasn't exactly affluent enough to be notable, but it wasn't a slum, either. It was respectable without getting above its station, the most any bar royalty or nobility could hope for in Lindblum.

[gracefuldahlia]

There were a few benefits to being taken for a Selkie on Spira. For one, it meant that Marluxia and Lumi, traveling together, didn't attract attention. Ordinarily any pair that looked like they did would have been the subject of stares and comments, but Spirans were used to it. For two, Selkies had a reputation. This reputation was best summed up as 'they are basically all like Grimmjow', a presumption that Marluxia had thus far found to be hilariously inaccurate. That said, given the prevalence of Selkies in Skite, for example, he could see how people reached such conclusions.

What it all meant, really, was that he and Lumi weren't particularly notable, and were also given a respectably wide berth by the general populace.

Vexen and Saix had made their home in an area that was respectable enough; one or both of them must have maintained a predictable income, but the area wasn't so stuck up that Selkies drew attention. Of course, Saix would have needed to fit in as much as Vexen, so that only made sense. The house itself looked small from the outside, although it was hard to judge how deep the building went from the front.

Marluxia had Vexen's key, and he didn't bother to lurk around looking suspicious before he unlocked the door. A big part of going unnoticed meant looking as if you were supposed to be somewhere.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi followed, the very picture of casual.

He waited patiently behind Marluxia as he opened the door to Vexen's house. He didn't peer around, or look as though he was taking in his strange, unfamiliar surroundings, nor did he fidget or look awkward. He was too used to breaking into places he shouldn't be to make any of those rookie mistakes.

From what he gleaned of that which he did see, he saw that the house, at least from the outside, looked to be fairly compact. The location was a fair one, not posh, but not run down, and in a location that provided easy access to the local shopping area.

When Marluxia let himself in, Lumi followed.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia closed the door behind Lumi. Inside, the house smelled as if no one had lived here in a few weeks. It wasn't the smell of a house that had stood empty while its owners were on holiday; this was an abandonment that had gone on longer. It smelled slightly dusty, and yet almost sterile underneath that. No one had cooked, cleaned, or breathed here with any regularity in a while.

The first door on the left was ajar, and Marluxia pushed it open cautiously. The hinge creaked at the end of its swing, revealing a living room that may not have been that often used anyway. There was a television, a sofa, and a single chair. Saix and Vexen clearly hadn't been the entertaining type, and Marluxia suspected the chair existed so that one or the other could sit here without it seeming like an invitation to the other, and the sofa was because they had occasionally chosen to sit together.

There were books on shelves around the room, an entire bookcase in one corner with some gaps in it suggesting someone had removed books and not returned them. The decor left something to be desired, but that was Marluxia's opinion of the house in general. He preferred the finer things in life, and whoever was responsible for this room had been much more pragmatic. It did what it was supposed to, and wasn't out to impress anybody with the fact that it could do that.

"I'm impressed they haven't been broken into," he said, his voice, like their footsteps, intrusive in the quiet of the house. Empty houses attracted that kind of thing, but, perhaps, people knew the inhabitants were with a clan, or perhaps they knew they had little to steal. There were a multitude of reasons possible for why no one had bothered.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi paused as Marluxia closed the door and proceeded down the short hallway.

For a moment, he didn't move. He wanted to get a feel for the house. Sensing Reiatsu was less use here than it could have been. It was old, easily upwards of a hundred years, and had seen many owners in its lifetime. Despite this, nothing notable had been performed in it recently, if ever, nothing that had sunk in too deep, not beyond the spiritual background noise that one could expect of any building of reasonable age. The fact that the house was one of many in a row, in a large and old city, didn't help matters. The scents were much more telling.

It smelled mildly unpleasant. It wasn't a scent that was outright disgusting, but the air of abandonment that swirled in the air like the dust that their entry had disturbed was, nonetheless, quite pungent. This became all the more apparent when Marluxia pushed the door open wider. Lumi wrinkled his nose as the disturbance in the air brought the scent of old fabrics, papered walls and a multitude of aged books to the fore.

Over the top and intermingled with the odour of neglect he could detect the scent of people, albeit not particularly strongly. He doubted anybody had been there in the past two or three weeks. He recognised Even, a faint smell beneath the layers, but there were others, those fresher, who wove through and sat atop it. One was obviously Saix, though he would not have been able to say which. The other, or others... guests, perhaps.

The smell of nervous sweat was absent, so Lumi felt certain that nobody had entered without permission.

Under the dust he could smell the location of the kitchen to the far end of the house. Nothing had been prepared there for a while, but it still lingered in the background like a light trail left imprinted on the eyes after one had closed them. Some smells faded very quickly, but the smell of food preparation tended not to, not when the same location was used almost daily over many, many years. It lingered like the sour tang of tobacco which, Lumi was sure, had been a vice of one of the house's previous owners, if he was any judge.

"Did they protect it from entry without a key?" Lumi asked, looking around.

His gaze fell upon the banister. There were hand prints in the coating of greyish dust that lay upon the worn wood, something so careless that they probably belonged to one of the owners, more than likely Saix. He had no reason to disguise his entry or movements; it was his house. Nevertheless, those marks had been covered with fresher dust, more evidence that he had not been back in some time.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia walked past the stairs to push open the kitchen door, and the one next to it, which led to a small dining room. This room seemed to have been cleaned more recently than the rest of the house. Most likely Saix, Marluxia thought. Someone had returned during Vexen's extended absence and shown the presence of mind required to dispose of perishable food items and give the kitchen a once over so as not to attract pests.

There was one lone mug on the draining rack by the sink. Everything else had been put away, and the bin had been emptied. The back door had been bolted at the top, and most likely locked.

"No," Marluxia said, in answer to Lumi's question, "except possibly by reputation, or an informal arrangement with neighbours." He glanced into the dining room briefly to see it as abandoned as the living room had been. "The Order claims its base in Rabanastre, so both of them would have been away with some regularity. Their extended absence may not have been noticed by the neighbourhood yet." It depended on how nosy the neighbourhood was.

He glanced, briefly, at Lumi. "Breaking in here may be more trouble than it's worth anyway; neither of them are the type to accumulate valuables."

Unless you counted books, anyway, which Vexen almost certainly did. They had a list of books he wished retrieved from his study, which, it seemed, was located upstairs.

[thesilentstorm]

"Ah," he said.

He followed Marluxia with his eyes as he made his way to the kitchen. With the door open, the smell of cleaning materials became more obvious and he was glad of it. Vacant and neglected as the house obviously was, it would have been so much worse had the buzzing of flies or the squeal of vermin greeted his partner upon that door being opened.

He stayed where he was, watching the dust motes dance in the light that spilled into the hallway from the open kitchen door. He detected a change in the air, a brief whisper of comparative freshness in the currents. There was, evidently, a vent of some kind in the kitchen.

In Lumi's opinion, the house was ... stuffy. It was like nothing else he'd ever seen. The fabrics were abundant and thick, all the better for trapping dust and scents, and the décor was dull and dowdy. It was busier than he would ever be able to appreciate and Lumi knew, somehow, that it would probably be considered somewhat old fashioned. The Palace was bad enough, but the more abundant space and former grandeur made him forgive more from it.

It at least had the excuse of being uninhabited for several hundred years. This house just acted like it had been. He wrinkled his nose as he looked around, taking in the visual details with a look of mild disdain.

"I can see why they both left," he said drily.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia smirked at Lumi's comment. "I can't see why they moved in to begin with," he said, glancing at Lumi out of the corner of his eye. "Decor aside, you've met Vexen."

The house was decorated in a style that was best described as a lack of style. Marluxia doubted that either Saix or Vexen had actually taken the time to go out and choose wallpaper, or carpet, or paint, or the like. The chances were that they had merely moved in their own furniture and possessions.

Add to that the personalities of the two inhabitants, and Marluxia didn't see this as having been a particularly happy home. Certainly not for long. The existence of the sofa suggested it may have been, once, but that time was long since past.

"His study will be upstairs," He said, glancing up them. The bedroom too, and the bathroom. He wondered if he'd find a camp bed in the study, or a spare bedroom that served as a doghouse for Saix. Looking around someone else's home when they weren't there could be quite revealing. "Let's not linger too long." He turned to the stairs and began to make his way up.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi didn't dispute Marluxia's implications.

He didn't like Even. He didn't much like anybody, but Even, during the brief period in which he had been forced to share his company, had been fussy, tedious and had reminded him of somebody he once knew. Given that Lumi almost loathed that person, it wasn't a particularly fond reminiscence. The notion of somebody electing to live with him seemed an odd one, in light of that.

He moved aside as Marluxia headed for the stairs.

"I'll wait here," he said.

He didn't much like the idea of both of them being on the upper floor in a strange building. There was something about it that he was sure would make him feel cornered.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia nodded at Lumi's statement. Having Lumi watch the doors was better than him needlessly trailing upstairs after himself. Marluxia felt safe enough with Lumi watching his back, as it were.

At the top of the stairs the landing was small, and dark. Marluxia opened doors at random. One of them was a box of a room that, at a guess, was Saix's doghouse room. There was a sad looking single bed, and not much else. For someone that had lived on this world for some time, this room would be the one where all the accumulated nonsense would be stored, kept but never used. The room equivalent of that one drawer in the kitchen.

The bathroom was small, but clean. At a guess, the shower got used more often than the bath. The shared bedroom was more spacious than the other, and someone, Saix presumably, had taken the time to make and turn down the bed. He'd been careful, it seemed, not to give Vexen reason to be angrier with him than he already was.

The last room was Vexen's study. It was easily discerned by the sheer volume of books, a number of which had not been put away, the desk, and the general fact that Saix's cleaning rounds had deliberately spared this room. Marluxia walked in without a care. The only sign Saix had even ventured in here was the envelope on the desk, with Vexen's name written on it.

Marluxia picked it up and flipped it over. It was sealed, and he murmured amusement before slipping it into his pocket. He recognised Saix's handwriting, and no doubt Vexen would too, but the fact he'd bothered to seal it shut despite leaving it in his own house spoke volumes. Saix expected intrusions from someone other than Vexen, from the look of it.

Or he wanted to know if Vexen came home and bothered to read it.

Marluxia began by shuffling the papers on the desk together. Vexen could take the time to put them in order himself later. There was an open journal, too. Marluxia closed it around the papers, and then pulled Vexen's list from his pocket.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi watched Marluxia ascend the stairs.

He stayed in the hallway, listening. He glanced up at the ceiling as he heard Marluxia walk around upstairs, the creaking floor giving away his position.

He didn't like the house at all. It might have been tolerable if it was newer, or modernised, but he doubted that there would ever be any sort of renovation that could shave enough years off the old brick and plaster to suit him.

[notjustanyolddude]

Vexen had done a bunk.

Which was funny really because if Xigbar had been asked to put money on one of the two of them doing a runner, his money would have gone on Saix. Saix was the one that had hooked up with Axel, and Xigbar trusted those two together about as far as half the Saturday night patrons of the Sandsea could piss, which seemed to be about as far as their own shoes.

But no. Vexen had done a bunk, and Saix lurked around Rabanastre, working in the Sandsea. Maybe there was something else keeping the dude hanging about, some part of him he couldn't put his own finger on. Or maybe it was because some jokester had found him a clipboard.

It worried Xigbar a little, to have lost Vexen. Losing Zexion had been bad enough, but so long as Lexaeus stuck with them Xigbar was reasonably sure that Zexion would find his way back. It might take him time, he might have to fuck something up first, but sometimes you had to let kids run off and make their own mistakes before they came back with their tails between their legs.

Vexen though.... He'd run off to Daguerreo, which was predictable enough. Upset that nerd and he'd go and find the books to drown his sorrows. But he hadn't come back yet, even though Saix had moved out. Xigbar had been back a few times to check on the place, to see if there were any signs of activity, and fight the urge to hide a fish in the curtain pole while he was there, and there hadn't been.

It was getting very concerning. Vexen should be cooling off by now, because for an ice elemental he could be damned hot headed, and Xigbar hadn't heard from him at Daguerreo despite attempting to get in touch.

Xigbar's own business took him to Lindblum anyway on a semi regular basis, and after making his drop off he dropped by the former love nest. The front door was locked, of course, Saix had made sure of that, but he habitually left the key in the back door, and for someone whose kekkei genkai as they called it here was twisting space and opening little portals, it was no big deal to reach his hand in, grab the key, and turn it.

He retreated from that portal and opened another to the top of the door, so he could slide the bolt back, too.

He no longer expected Vexen to have stopped home, but it was worth giving him another chance, and failing that, a clue as to where he might duck to other than a giant library would be helpful. There were too many other possibilities.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi stood in the hallway, glancing around at the different parts of it with the same sort of idle restlessness usually seen in somebody in a hospital waiting room.

His mind wandered, though he kept his senses tuned into everything around him. He listened to Marluxia upstairs while taking in the patterns on the faded wallpaper and the years of wear on the wooden handrail, enough to have exposed the grain of the wood beneath the stain or varnish that had been applied. He looked down at the thin carpet, the wear more evident in the middle than it was at the sides. With a sigh, he adjusted his stance.

That was when he heard the grinding sound from the kitchen. It was metallic and accompanied by a low squeal that was likely beyond the hearing range of most. A key being turned. He stiffened. A waft of fresher air confirmed that there had been a breach of some kind, but he scowled, unable to work out what had been done. He would have heard the window being opened or a pane of glass in the door being broken. He didn't dwell on it, however, for the sound of the bolt scraping confirmed that something, somehow, was trying to get in.

He stepped back, into the doorway of the drawing room and out of sight of the kitchen. Alerting Marluxia to the presence of an intruder would also alert that same intruder to the presence of them.

Instead, he reached into his coat and drew one of his guns.

[notjustanyolddude]

Xigbar opened the back door and let himself in. He was used to getting in this way by now, so this was practically routine for him. He knew the layout of the kitchen, the exact positioning of that one cup on the draining board, and the layout of the rest of the house.

He was also familiar with the usual sound and feel of the house, and today it felt and sounded wrong. Xigbar paused in the doorway and paid attention. The house was usually achingly quiet in a way that made the slightest noise seem ten times louder, like abandoned buildings everywhere.

Then there was the feel of it. Xigbar wasn't the most sensitive of the Thirteenth Order when it came to what the locals called reiatsu, and vestigia, but he wasn't a novice with it. The house had its own vestigia in that it sorely lacked anything overwhelming. If you really paid attention for a long time, you could feel the faint impression left by an ice elemental and a berserker, and if you really paid attention you could tell which rooms they'd spent the most time in (Vexen was his study, Saix was the kitchen), but those traces had faded even while Xigbar had made his visits. Now it was background noise.

Today the background noise was being overwhelmed by something else. Something familiar, and something not so familiar.

There was someone here, or had been someone here, and it wasn't Vexen.

Xigbar reached for his own guns, wondering if the house had finally been broken into. Some things were only a matter of time.

He headed for the door to the hallway warily, keeping an ear out, in case he got a clue as to the whereabouts of the intruders. Definitely intruders.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi heard a faintly protesting hinge, a boot on the tiled kitchen floor and smelled the cold air of the outside. The door had been opened and whoever had been out there was now inside.

He listened to the footsteps. They were careful, hesitant. The trespasser was familiar enough with the house to get in with ease and apparently familiar enough to own a key. They also knew that they weren't alone. The pause in the steps told him that.

Lumi could feel him. It was definitely a him, the scent was definitely masculine, though not overtly so. Whoever it was didn't go through the trouble of applying much in the way of aftershave or cologne. Given the fact that they were letting themselves into a house that was very likely not theirs, he surmised that making himself less recognisable, or at least less likely to be detected after he'd gone, was deliberate. The trace of heavily suppressed Reiatsu he felt was ... distantly familiar, though it took Lumi a second to realise that he had felt the same when he entered the house.

Whoever it was made semi-regular visits, though not for long, certainly not long enough to leave much more than the faintest trace over the layers of old and recent history that lingered in the rooms and hallways. Regular entry by another person would have covered it up easily.

If nothing else, he was reasonably sure it wasn't Saix. Saix was the house's owner, sole owner, if Even had forfeited his claim to it upon leaving. He would have let himself in via the front door, not the back.

Something in Lumi made him want to curl his lip, show his teeth and growl his displeasure at the easy job being interrupted, but he bit back the urge and maintained his silence as he always did. He listened for the next footstep, holding back on cocking his gun until the sound could be masked.

[notjustanyolddude]

Xigbar pushed the kitchen door open a little wider slowly, keeping himself to one side as he did so. He silently cursed the fact that the house, and doors, and importantly, hinges, weren't so new. It creaked, and tried to swing back into place.

Xigbar scowled, and nudged it with one of his guns instead. They weren't his arrowguns. Xigbar had those at his disposal too, but he preferred to keep those in reserve for if he really needed to shoot some poor fucko with a shitload of bullets. The real guns he had were Spiran made, and he'd found himself with a particular fondness for magical bullets. There was a certain nasty pleasure in shooting something with an elemental it was weak to, and trust Spirans to have gone to the trouble to magically imbue lead pellets to maximise their ability to fuck people up.

Whoever was here, they knew he was here, too. He had to be careful. He scoped out the hall through the gap in the door before he pushed it open again, his other gun at the ready.

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia had located some of the materials Vexen wanted retrieved. What he could make fit his pocket, he had, but Vexen wanted some books as well, and those didn't fit away as easily.

He'd stacked them on the desk, the one floorboard near to it creaking with the shift of his weight.

There was an answering creak from downstairs as one of the doors shifted on its hinges. Lumi was refreshingly uncurious a lot of the time, and he'd been particularly so when it came to Vexen's old house. He wouldn't be opening doors slowly enough for them to creak, and certainly not for no reason.

Marluxia paused, frowning as he turned his head and concentrated on senses other than sight.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi took the safety off his gun as the kitchen door creaked, though he scowled at the relative volume of his weapon in comparison. There was little chance the intruder wouldn't have heard the metallic grind and click.

He trusted that Marluxia had been both detected by the stranger and had detected him in turn. If he headed up the stairs, going towards the creaks, Lumi could take him out from behind.

He took a breath, a quiet one, and listened for the sound of feet on the threadbare carpet instead of the hard kitchen floor.

[notjustanyolddude]

Someone was upstairs. In the study from the sound of it. Xigbar listened for a moment longer, trying to pick up on who or what exactly he was dealing with.

Whoever it was, they were trying to hide. Their reiatsu was heavily suppressed, and suppressed even further now they knew Xigbar was here.

Then there had been that little telltale metallic click. Some chucklehead was lurking about with a gun, and they weren't himself.

He readied his own guns before he stepped out into the hall, aware that he could be shot at or worse any time now, and might have to beat a hasty retreat into one of the rooms. He slipped carefully towards the dining room first, not wanting to walk right past it and leave himself open to being shot in the back.

What was that reiatsu he could feel? It was familiar, and yet not one he ran into a lot. Certainly not someone from the Order.

Realisation was like a lightbulb being turned on. Now what the hell was he doing here?

"I wouldn't think this was your kinda digs," he called, "not enough garden, right? Marluxia?"

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia couldn't hear Lumi, but he could hear someone moving very carefully about the kitchen. Lumi was better than that, he wouldn't make any noise unless he couldn't help it.

Marluxia concentrated. He was a Geomancer here, he was more sensitive than most, though not as sensitive as the likes of Zexion, Ienzo, whichever he preferred now.

Amiable menace put him in mind of Gin, but Gin never felt this... Dark. This was Dark like Ulquiorra's when he had his mask out, but Ulquiorra's didn't smile at you like this did. This was a Dark that would buy you a beer, coax you in, make you comfortable, and then press a gun to your forehead once your guard was down.

Marluxia knew exactly who their intruder was before the voice confirmed it.

He hadn't fought Xigbar on this world, but this world had seen fit to give him an ear for the Green Word, to give Zexion his ability to smell reiatsu signatures, he highly doubted it would have taken away Xigbar's entire element. Unfortunately, he had no way to warn Lumi about Xigbar's peculiar abilities without also warning Xigbar about Lumi's presence.

Better to hope Lumi was being a good headhunter and had kept himself hidden the second he'd picked up on Xigbar's presence.

Much, much better to keep Xigbar talking. He'd always been chatty, and chatty meant distracted if he thought Marluxia was alone.

"Merely seeing what gil can buy, Xigbar," he responded, knowing Lumi would at least pick up on the name meaning the Order's current de facto leader, and moving towards the top of the stairs. He kept himself back, out of view of anyone slowly creeping round the stairs to come for him.

"What's your excuse?"

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi followed the sound of the intruder heading towards the dining room, knowing his direction from the muffled footsteps on the carpet and the door being pushed open. He didn't recognise the voice when it spoke, but the fact that he had addressed Marluxia by name made him narrow his eyes.

He had his suspicions as to who it might be, if only in a general way, and Marluxia confirmed them when he responded.

Xigbar's accent was strange, different to that of the other Ryoka, Marluxia included. The others he had heard ranged from well-spoken to upper class. Had the name not clued him in, Lumi wouldn't have known what he was up against.

Lumi kept himself quiet and hidden. Marluxia didn't want to alert Xigbar to his presence, that was obvious enough. There was no reason for him to have used his name, not when he already knew he was there and would have recognised his voice without it. No, that was for his benefit. To Xigbar it would be banter, to him it was information and a concealed instruction not to move.

[notjustanyolddude]

"Me?" Xigbar asked, his tone amiable as he checked out the dining room, content that it held no nasties. Marluxia wasn't a gun user, he knew, so that little metallic grind and click hadn't been him. "I'm house sitting."

Marluxia had a partner. Larxene had been real pissy about that. Some white haired dude none of them really knew. Marluxia always liked having lackeys, and where possible, he liked when they did the work and he got to play boss. It was highly unlikely he'd have come here alone.

And he was trying to distract him.

"You shoulda said you wanted to check the place out. I could have give you the guided tour."

He paused to change bullets. Marluxia's flowers had never been fond of fire. No one had been able to tell him what element the partner was, but Xigbar doubted it was that. He just wished he could pick up on the partner's reiatsu, but he was probably making damn sure he was hard to spot now, and mostly Xigbar could feel Marluxia, deliberately flooding the place with the tinge of his own reiatsu.

"Last I heard of you, you'd got yourself a new partner and joined Khamja," he said, amiably, while he reloaded his gun. "Lu something? Larxene's seriously got it in for him, you know."

[gracefuldahlia]

Marluxia felt the corner of his mouth twitch in a wry smile. Xigbar was letting him know that he knew about Lumi. Letting him know, even, that he thought Lumi was here somewhere.

Hopefully, he wouldn't have long to know how right he was.

"I think Lumi can handle her," he said, shifting slightly to peer through the banisters into the hall. He couldn't see Xigbar, still, and it sounded like he was in another room.

It didn't take much concentration to keep his reiatsu unmasked and let it fill the immediate vicinity.

[thesilentstorm]

Lumi heard Marluxia upstairs and Xigbar still in the next room. Marluxia's voice put him at the top of the stairs, probably mostly out of view, and Xigbar, by the sound of it, had stopped in the dining room to load a weapon. He knew that sound well enough.

He listened to the conversation, taking in both what was being said and what very deliberately wasn't. Xigbar was aware that he was in the house, but he didn't know where he was, or he hadn't before he checked the dining room. The click of his gun would have given away which floor he was on, so he knew that he and Marluxia were currently separated. With the kitchen and the room he was in eliminated, it didn't leave anywhere else for him to be.

He gritted his teeth for a moment, frustrated. A narrow hallway wasn't the ideal location for a shootout. He edged to the doorframe and looked up at the stairs, keeping himself out of view of the dining room doorway. If he could catch Marluxia's eye it could make all the difference when it came to making their exit.