(no subject)

[empathiclord.livejournal.com]

Rated: PG
Dated: Tonight
Summary: Atobe and Shishido meet in Oshitari's yard and talk a while...



The only son of the Atobe empire sighed and brushed the sunset coloured hair from his eyes with a tired gesture and a troubled expression on his usually arrogant face. The attack on Oshitari Yuushi had not been entirely unexpected, but was still enough to trouble the empath. He'd come by for his weekly meeting shortly after leaving the office, and again it had taken 2 hours to get the complete story and set up some new plans and funding for his leader/friend. Glancing down at the light green glow of his watch, he rolled his eyes and yawned. It was well after midnight, by now Kunimitsu would likely be asleep and would not be pleased to be bothered by his lover's insomnia for the third time in so many nights. Shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his dress pants, he started the slow walk toward the gate of the Oshitari home, opting not to summon his own driver as the walk might help him sleep when he did finally arrive home.

With some luck. Or a miracle.

Shishido didn't have as much information as he usually had when he came to visit Oshitari, but he figured this tidbit couldn't wait. Those astral plane blips or whatever they were called had a cause and his name was Echizen. If anyone would be interested it would be Oshitari, especially since his powers had been manifesting and causing him undue stress. It was also an excellent excuse to have a private late night visit and with luck no talks of Saeki would pop up either.

Landing just on the other side of Oshitari's fence, he started up the path when he noticed someone who didn't seem to belong. He looked again, focusing his eyes and thanking his hawk-like vision as he made out the features of the other person still some distance away. Atobe Keigo. It had certainly been a while since they're paths had last crossed. Speeding up his walk, he moved towards his old acquaintance, “Oi, Atobe. Long time no see.” He called out, pausing to give Atobe a chance to recognize him in the dim lighting before moving any closer.

Someone recognized him? He reached into the back of his belt hoop, fingers wrapping around the cool handle of his gun, already removing the safety with a silent click. He squinted in the dark, frowning once he realized who it was and releasing his grip on his weapon as his own mutation had been on the fritz lately and no amount of testing could find any extra abnormalities aside from his mutancy.

"Hello, Shishido. It has been some time." He didn't necessarily dislike his friend's companion, though he did find the clingy dependant nature a bit...well, pathetic. "I trust things are going well."

Shishido smiled at the greeting and relaxed his guard further. “I'm still alive at least... and you?” If there was someone who could battle Oshitari and probably even beat him on the wealth scale it was the man infront of him. They'd been introduced back when Oshitari and him had still been in the introductory flirting stages of their weird relationship and while not exactly fast friends, Shishido felt confident that he could at least trust Atobe to watch Oshitari's back and that went a long way with him.

"About the same." He didn't deny his state as much as he had initially when the mutation had been toughest on him. He'd never been to sure about the (pardon the pun) flighty boy before him, but he was faithful enough to his longtime friend to be considered tolerable until proven otherwise. "I take it you are on your way to visit him. He should still be in the main study." He wasn't in a hurry necessarily, but felt he had very little in common with Shishido.

“Yeah, had something I wanted to talk to him about.” Shishido said nonchalantly as if a person showing up this late at night was a normal thing. Well to him, it was so hopefully Atobe didn't think anything odd about it. “Finishing up from a social call or work related?” Anybody who hadn't been living under a rock knew the Atobe name and the general idea of what their company got up to. And if you were a member of X-Prime's information gathering team you had more than a passing interest in the subject.

He pondered the best answer to the question, raising an eyebrow and mulling it over a moment before brushing his bangs from his face again and offering a slightly imperious smile. "Both actually. How do they say it, I was killing two birds with one stone." He glanced at his companion before raising a brow and shaking his head, that had been an accidental comment in all honesty, but a horribly amusing faux pas all the same. "If you'll pardon the expression."

Shishido just rolled his eyes at the bad pun, accidental or not. “I'm still human, so I won't take offense to it.” He shrugged it off, his wings, his most noticeable avian feature, moving with the action. “How's the business going by the way. Saw an interesting blurb in the paper the other day about this new discovery...” Okay, he was playing dumb as he saw the blurb and then dug around for the published ful report on the discovery but if he could get more information he might be able to give it to Tomiyama to prove once again how awesome he is.

He refused to comment on the wings, that would be far too much of a joke at that point. He glanced up at the question again, hoping the exhaustion he was feeling since the discovery was not registering on his face yet. He did have a reputation for being a sturdy person in spite of 18 hour days on a fairly frequent basis. "Just some details about it, it was really a rather limited story on the potential of the findings," he smirked, well aware of the winged boy's little information seeking game, as he was often subject to the pointless attempts by business partners and the media alike. "Most of it is still top secret and has yet to even be published." He couldn't stop a faint smirk from forming across his face, marking a point for himself again in the constant battle that was his life.

“Now you're just saying all of that to make me more curious. So uncool.” Shishido complained though in all honesty, after a couple years of knowing Atobe he wasn't so surprised by the answer. “And it seemed damn interesting too, for weird biomed mumbo jumbo. Can you at least tell me if it's gone in to human...” He paused, “Or rather mutant testing stages yet? Just want to try and figure out how long before relevant information comes out about it.” It was a gamble, one that would get him a curt goodbye, a decisive change of topic or some form of answer. He had a feeling it would be stupid to hold his breath for the latter.

"You know how the company stands against that sort of testing." Though there was quite a jump between the company's standpoint and the reality of the situation, it would be no fun to cause a ruccus by either giving him the truth and risking a potential leak about valuable company secrets, which was unacceptable. He raised his brow again and crossed his arms firmly over his pressed and neatly buttoned shirt and tilted his head. "You'll have to excuse my lack of enthusiasm about discussing my work, of course." After all, he'd slept at the office the last few nights for several hours and had absolutely no interest in even thinking about work.

“And we all know that not all of your partners or affiliates share the same ethical standpoint of non-humanoid testing.” Shishido said plainly. There came a point that the only way to know what something really did on mutations was to test them on mutations. That involved mutant testing. Lab rats and theories could only take people so far. He didn't know if the testers were voluntary or how much even Atobe would know about it. Labs were, as he all too often discovered in his role as an X-Prime member, very good at keeping their secrets if they had reason to.

But Atobe was right, as he implied it was late for an average business man and he imagined Tezuka was waiting for Atobe's return. Assuming the two were still together but as he'd heard nothing of the contrary from Oshitari he was rather certain they were. “I suppose I should be polite and let you continue on your way. You are looking more tired then usual.” Most people wouldn't have noticed a difference in this lighting but to Shishido there was no difference between midnight and noon when it came to studying features of a person.

His eyes narrowed slightly at the comment and quietly shrugged it off. "Perhaps it's all in your head, it's not easy to trust even your own mind with the likes of me around, now is it?" He had toyed with the other before his mutation had gone crazy, and sometimes he still had brief flashes of his former empathic abilities, even for just short spans of time. He wasn't in the mood to play around too much longer, and he had hopes of perhaps sleeping in his own high-count thread bedding until his early morning wake up call.

“You might play tricks with my mind and emotions Atobe, but my eyesight still works fine. And I'm pretty sure those are bags under yours.” Shishido grinned. He knew that Atobe was clearly tired and that he shouldn't be picking on him but if there was anyone that people could agree on who was more vain then him it was Atobe. So what was the harm in picking on him this late at night when he didn't look a hundred percent.

"Be that as it may," he ignored the stinging fact that he was not looking his absolute best and calmly spoke to the other mutant as if he were a child. "Some people do need to actually accomplish something to help our sort."

Shishido blinked at him as if he had grown a third eye, did Atobe think he was a moron. “Well I don't know. I think I manage to help out and get the recommended amount of sleep. Maybe you're just bad at multitasking?” He was going to get a talk about being polite to his guests from Oshitari if this conversation ever got back to him,.

"Well not all of us were granted a forced sleep schedule and would rather work to the full potential than be happy with just mediocre results. Though you must have some use or you wouldn't be kept around." He was implying something besides missions and business sense, and offered a suiting expression.

Shishido's wings ruffled as he froze in place at the insult. But he was not going to let stupid Atobe get the best of him. “You should have just told me you wanted a demonstration of my 'special' skills. It would have saved us all of this verbal foreplay hmm?” He asked, feeling slightly disgusted with himself for flirting with another man on Yuushi's property. Even if he was only doing it to piss Atobe off. “I bet I even have the skills to tire you out enough so you can get some proper sleep.” One touch of a toxin covered feather and Atobe would be out like a light, it was tempting.

The other mutant earned an amused, rich chuckle from the blue eyed man across from him. "How amusing that you would think such a thing, but you see- I have a featherduster already and an annoying bird that makes plenty of noise as it is, so I really have no use for you." It wasn't that Shishido wasn't an attractive specimen, but he was far too loud and easily irritated to serve as more than an amusing point in otherwise dull days. At the mention of proper sleep, he glared slightly and used his more authoritive voice he often used in meetings to make his point very clear. "I already know about your feathers and I would reconsider taking that course of action- I imagine our common friend wouldn't appreciate a fight in his yard at this time of the evening."

“Ah, but I bet your bird can't moan your name out as seductively as I can.” Yup, he was going to have to wash his mouth out with soap later. At least he was fairly certain that barring any freak accidents, Atobe would never take him up on any of these offers. “And it'd be so quiet he probably wouldn't even notice. I'd even call your driver for you he could drop you off at home to your butler or lover or whoever you get dropped off to.” Most of it was teasing, but somewhere in all of that was a genuine concern for the other's health and a curiosity of why Oshitari's friend wasn't sleeping.

"He's a Maya bird, I guarantee he can." It had been an odd gift his mother had brought with them after a trip and had been amusing for some time. Maya birds mimicked sounds almost flawlessly, and his own had a habit of speaking like the maids and sometimes giving him a slight start when he ventured into his home's library where the bird was kept. "I'm not the sort to accept that sort of charity, thank you."

“I think that was way too much information about the kind of relationship you have with your bird.” Shishido teased again and began walking away from the house to encourage Atobe to follow him down the path. There was no reason to loiter on the lawns when they could start the trek that would bring Atobe to a bed. “And who said it was charity? It's just a good excuse to watch you pass out. I wonder if you drool or snore...”

"He's an interesting character. You may have that much in common." Atobe replied dryly, absently following the other down the path, glad for the light of the moon to help him stay in a straight line. He couldn't help chuckling again at the comment before shaking his head, "I apparently just talk a bit."

“I guess I'll take the compliment where I can get it.” Even if it was a compliment about him being as interesting as a pet bird. At least Atobe seemed somewhat fond of the thing. “And when you talk do you tell dirty little secrets? Or oh call out for your mom? Cause that would be embarrassing and I'd so tease you about it.”

It was almost tempting to try and get some help with sleeping, almost. "No, I'm afraid nothing that interesting. You'd be horribly bored with it. I have no dirty secrets. My mother did not raise me, so it would not likely have a thing to do with her. And are you quite done grilling me?"

“For now. And perfect timing. We seem to be at the gate.” Shishido said as he paused in the walk to look at the entrance gate in front of them. “Last chance for the Shishido sleeping service...” He didn't mind performing this service as it was less offered out of the goodness of his heart and more to test the skill. It wasn't often people volunteered to be a practice target of the toxins afterall.

"I think I'll take a pass on that." Though he was at least tired enough to avoid the walk home, pulling out his phone, he dialed in the number and a short command for the driver to arrive immediatly at the gates of the Oshitari compound. Glancing back at Shishido as he hung up the phone, he granted one of his kinder smiles to the other mutant. "Though you may want to consider offering it to Oshitari-kun, if you think I look bad, just wait and see."

“Your loss.” Shishido said, politely waiting for the phone call to end and deciding a few more minutes standing by the gate until the car arrived wouldn't make a difference to Oshitari. Especially if his bonded was pulling one of those all nighters again. “I would... but then I risk the wrath of Kamio and the twins thinking I poisoned him.” It had at least, been comical the first time. Until they drew weapons on him and he had some super fast explaining to do. He'd rather not go through that again in case they were in a bitchy mood. But he would ask Yuushi anyway as sleep came before avoiding twin torture.

"I imagine somehow I shall manage to carry on without your assistance. But thank you all the same." He waited, only having to wait a full 3 minutes before the black vehicle arrived and he slowly entered as the door was held open. Closing the door, he opened the window and locked eyes with Shishido. "Take good care of him, alright? He's had a bad enough week as it is, and frankly my news for him was not what he wanted to hear."

Shishido, while curious to know more about this news refrained from asking and gave a nod. “I always do.” Kamio might be the boyfriend but he was the best friend. And while there were things that only a boyfriend could do there were things that only a friend could offer. It was often his job to bear burdens that Yuushi did not yet want to share with his boyfriend or for some reason couldn't. It wasn't often thankfully, it both filled him with a sense of belonging at being needed and pain at not being able to offer more but if Oshitari needed him again tonight to gently run fingers through his hair and tell him that his friends and family would support him no matter what he would do so. And he would never complain about the service he provided just as he knew Yuushi would never complain about helping him when he asked. “And let me know if you ever change your mind.” He flapped his wings lightly to show just what he was talking about before turning around to make his way back up the walk.

"Of course. Goodnight, Shishido-kun." The window rolled up as the car pulled away, allowing the worn out executive the privacy to finally slump and let his exhausion show. He knew come morning, they would be back to the drawing boards on the latest experiment, another test subject had died overnight and that meant the pill was a failure like so many of the previous trials.