Xigbar's grown himself a fringe, and it's just long enough to cover the eye patch and halt the awkward questions. He throws it back out of his face as he settles down in the two-seater, novelty drinking glass and microwave dinner aside.
"You're on." Namine grounds her cigarette into the TV guide and no matter how much he scolds her she's too young for it and for Larxene to quit while she's ahead they pop back like a bad joke. "Pick it, CoD or Halo."
"Halo," Xigbar says because CoD's for crackheads and Namine doesn't need to know how to fold a joint right now.
"Fine," Namine steps up and feeds in the disc, hits a few buttons and pulls the controllers out from under the coffee table. She navigates through the title screens with a familiar ease and tilts her head towards the side in allowance. "Your choice of world."
She must like doing this, letting her opponent the advantage and gunning them down on their own territory. He selects the first one. "You working tomorrow?" He'll leave it to one round if so, it's getting late.
"No. My regular client got caught out by his wife."
Xigbar exhales. "Shit, I'm sorry."
"Don't."
Personal, then. Xigbar turns his attention back to the loading screen and sits a bit straighter as he spawns on an isolated landing.
Radar says she's not nearby and Xigbar makes for the roof, swapping into guns with pink spikes. Namine picks out a sniper which is kind of weird because they're not on multiplayer online and it would've been awesome if they played capture the flag instead. Xigbar has just found finally found the sword he was looking for (awesome!) when Larxene yanks at him and Namine takes the chance to blow his brains out.
"Headshot, baby," Larxene coos appreciatively and raises an eyebrow and Xigbar the way that says she's taken one. Misdirection, probably. As far as Xigbar knows she only really snorts coke, so it's not like her veins would be dead and she wouldn't have to go looking for sensitive new places to shoot up like between her toes or in her eyes… Xigbar mentally shudders.
"Beautiful new tatt, sugar," Namine comments. Xigbar hasn't even noticed, although she's still clawing his face. It's probably in one of those pervy places that you only see from accidental angles while sitting at the couch. Larxene already has a tramp stamp, an inverted wire cross and eight gleaming knives. Xigbar wonders if she was rich she'd go for the plastic surgery too, and then decides he doesn't need to know.
Larxene hauls up the side of her dress to show them, and the skin is still blotchy around where her fishnets rub.
Xigbar glances back to the screen and respawns. Namine's taken his sword of course and he ponders how long it'll take for her to run him through with it. If he took a left now he could make it easy for her, but no.
"He's obviously going to grenade you," Larxene calls, and plan foiled again, Xigbar glares back at his assailant.
"Well sorry if I don't scream subtle like you do, bitch."
Larxene tutts. "Play nice, Barry boy, or I'll let your big secret out." She steals a bite of his two-minute curry. "Barry likes them thick. He likes his big, juicy meat wrapped around his tongue, because he's a cocksucker and he has to stay in his place."
"Fuck you, Larxene."
The woman – girl? Not a lady - lunges for the phone, eyes manic. "Ooh Barry, I'm going to call you're girlfriend, I'm going to call Krystal and tell her you like 'em long and loaded, she better get hung fast or she'll be left out to dry like yesterday's wet washing…"
"Kairi," Xigbar mutters under his breath.
"Don't let her get to you," Namine advises, and lops his head off.
It's such a bunch of bullshit it is that Xigbar decides to give up and he takes a big swig of his prised red and downs it one hit. Wine isn't meant to be drunk like that, he thinks. It's meant to be served in stemmed glasses with wide brims that lipstick catches in boring dinner parties on hillside mansions, wise aristocrats swishing it around their mouths in tasting.
Anyway, he isn't going to play Halo anymore until Namine grows one of her own and he stumbles to his room with his dinner and thinks how he thought he was going to be alone tonight. The low ceiling shadows deep and its harsh contours are heavy to look at, like the misfitted endposts of his bed. It's just one of those cheap old-fashioned houses with rooms that don't go together, mismatched furniture kept for the sake of economy.
It's all plaster and wood, not cool enough to the touch, he craves something ice cold like frozen metal or liquid mercury or tangible disappointment.
"What are you doing," Larxene says, finding him laid sprawled over the bed, dinner brushed onto the bedside.
"I don't feel like hosting today," Xigbar says, and throws himself under the covers. "Go away."
"Really, you're as stupid as Na-ne." And that's what Larxene calls her when she bothers to call her by name, that stupid contraction that's like someone saying nahh then neigh in close succession, like they were impersonating a horse or one of those old fashioned soldiers that said nay instead of just no, he wants to go to sleep.
The bed dips suddenly with her weight and Xigbar sits up. He doesn't feel like being left exposed to someone as calculating as her.
"Do you know what happened to Axel?" No of course he doesn't know what happened to Axel, he and Axel haven't spoken in months, they're barely related, vastly separated, hardly on close terms.
"Well I do," Larxene confides. "He got shot. Shot in the head with a pistol like the idiot he was and I watched the blood seep from his head as he threw forwards, there was pain in his eyes as his entrails dripped down his neck."
"Go away."
"And then do you want to know what happened?" Larxene lays a hand across Xigbar's throat. "I told him there was no mercy for the weak and he was going to the worst place he could possibly imagine and no one could say it otherwise to us. I forced his eyes closed while they were still open and that's how he spent the rest of his short live, all panicked and struggling."
"Liar," Xigbar accuses.
He gets out of the bed and moves to his top draw, feeling the fold of the palm away from him and he picks out a pair of boxers and an alright pair of jeans. He won't stay here, not tonight, with things the way they are.
Larxene sooner or later is going to throw him out of the closet like she always threatens and he's probably going to lose his job and the smiles he gets from his old neighbour and his free pass into Kairi's flat whenever he feels like.
That's not what he feels like now. The moon is high in the sky but invisibly because of the city lights and Xigbar pulls his coat further against his skin and tucks the clothes into his right sleeve, he thinks about why they called it a skylight in his old place when you could only see the next floor's balcony bottom just above it, and then why would an architect place a window where it wasn't necessary, and why being unique is important, and why he didn't go to college and what he wishes he could do with his life.
If he got to choose he'd go flying in the sky as an interpreter because he'd need a plane to get out of the city to the people, and he would help them speak his language and taste the foreign food and swim in the small pools when he got bored of things. Could he do that? Swim in one of the little koi ponds the Easterners had in their traditional houses, or maybe they were sacred and he was just supposed to admire them because he was afraid of the sunshine.
So Xigbar takes his phone from his coat pocket. This coat is the only thing he consistently wears, faded from black and he likes the feel of it against his shirtsleeves, there's a small, square light coming from the phone screen, he has to squint and move up against a lamppost so he can see the home screen, he probably looks like a drug runner and let them look, let them stare, he's got his car keys and everything will be alright.
Can u swim in koi ponds he inquires of Xaldin, hands shaking with slight tire. It's not far to Xaldin's house either for a matter of fact and he might go there, he might wait for Luxord to quit his gambling and let him in, he might climb to the top of the building and jump right off.
You're high, aren't you, comes the toneless response and no, Xigbar scoffs, he doesn't need drugs to stay happy, he's got death and all his friends, he's got his nine to fiver in field work, and the shriek of the trumpets at five in the morning and he hates the song, he hates the monotonous drills and the swearing and the murder.
A locked door. Xigbar raises his right foot and beats it down. He doesn't want to be the freeshoter, and he doesn't want to be the person they can rely on, the freeloaders or the rattle of guncaps, the lock in the barrel, and everything just goes back to that, the misfire, the miscarriage, the end.
Demyx lies in a pool of himself on the ground and he strums the guitar, bombs sound. Fireworks that explode in dusty clouds in the oversaturation of the muted television screen.
"Don't panic."