[log] Kamio, Oshitari Kenya, Oshitari Yuushi
Date: Day 006 Rating: G Summary: Kamio and Yuushi discuss telling the rest of Yuushi's family about Kamio's GeoStigma.
The air was filled with warbles and squawks, a discussion -- or a heated argument; Kamio couldn't really tell -- occupying the two large Chocobo inside the fenced-in yard near the Chocobo stables. Not that Kamio cared, or was even paying attention to the black and the blue female. Instead, he drew a slow breath, closed his eyes, and leaned heavily against the top, wooden rail of the fence.
His hands were still shaking; his heart, still stuttering in his chest.
Fuck, that had been close.
Uncomfortably close, he thought, exhaling just as slow. There were certain things that he just wasn't ready to deal with -- and Akutsu Jin turning up in Junon, asking questions about that damn reactor was one of them. Hell, he wasn't even ready to discuss his GeoStigma with the man, but there had been no other options. At least that had gotten the other sidetracked from his line of questioning. And Dark hauling Kamio off on his back had put distance between the redhead and the other man.
But now...
Kamio sagged just a bit more, cursing vividly in his head. Of course he should call Don Yukimura; he worked for the man, and that meant he practically belonged to him. Yet to do that, Kamio needed to be able to cover his lie to Akutsu. The redhead grimaced at the thought, his insides twisting nervously. "Shit," he hissed aloud. "Motherfucking god damn..." He moved one hand from rail to red hair and drug his shaking fingers through.
Yuushi was tired. Tired of having his blood drawn, tired of resting, tired of his room...tired of everything. He needed to get out, but he wasn't up for fielding any questions should he run into his uncle or one of his cousins. Swallow seemed to have disappeared, but he was sure the ex-SOLIDER was fine. Akira was gone as well, though, and that fact drove him out of his room and through the nearest window to get outside. Somehow he knew his lover was still nearby, and soon enough he found him, seemingly watching the two large Chocobo's squabble with a frown on his face.
Yuushi wasn't altogether aware that his approach had been all that quiet, but Akira didn't seem to notice him until he reached out and wrapped the swordsman back into his arms, breathing in the scent of his hair with some relief. Even his other self seemed to calm and settle down. He couldn't hear the warks and warbles anymore, but he sensed Dark come closer, his low warble communicating to him easily now.
"Akutsu was here." He didn't need much more than Dark's description of the man. 'White', 'Smoking', and 'Mean-Looking' pretty much summed up Yukimura's man.
Kamio shot the black Chocobo a scathing glare. Traitor, he mouthed; even if he couldn't understand the bird himself, the logical leap between Dark's soft warbles and Yuushi's statement was that the bird had said something.
The fact that this was the logical conclusion...
Well, he had been getting used to this new aspect of his lover. Kamio drew a breath and leaned back into Yuushi's hold. "Yeah, he was." Shutting his eyes, the redhead let his head fall back a little, swallowing uneasily. "Yukimura... Knows about the reactor, Yuushi. He's apparently been looking for me to help Jin with investigating what happened down there."
Darkwing treated Kamio to a look of his own, clearly communicating his message of 'too bad'. Feeling that his job was done now that Yuushi was there to protect his mate, he trilled a short wark and trotted back to the stables, where his own mate was napping.
Yuushi, though, was silent for a stretch of time, considering all the consequences of this newest information. When he did speak, it was quiet and calm. "Did they give any indication that they know who it was?" His hold on his lover tightened ever so slightly.
"You mean besides the fact that Akutsu was looking for me specifically?" Kamio curled his nose and leaned back into Yuushi's hold. Now that the initial panic over seeing the white-haired man had passed, Kamio had been turning the entire thing over in his mind.
It didn't click.
"Not specifically but... I'm a weapons' runner, Yuushi," he pointed out softly, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Sometimes he did other runs for the Don too, sure: delivering messages while he was traveling from city to city, picking up locked boxes to take back to the man. But investigate?
Kamio's frown deepened and he shifted uneasily in Yuushi's hold. "This isn't something he's ever had me do before, ya know? So... Why now?" the redhead wondered aloud, then admitted, "It feels... Off. And even if they don't know who, they still know that something funny happened down there..."
"Then they at least suspect you..." Yuushi's voice trailed off as he considered that. To even suspect Akira, there must have been some way Yukimura was able to access something that gave him the swordsman's description. As far as Kamio had told him--though he hadn't been able to compare with Swallow--no one had seen them enter or leave the sector.
But...security cameras, perhaps? Yuushi had assumed them to be mostly defunct, since he'd seen no indication that they were even on when they'd entered. But it was the only thing he could think of, something that gave Yukimura enough of a glimpse of them to suspect his lover.
Not that it mattered to him. Akira could leave Yukimura's hold if he wanted to. He'd protect him. "We're--I'm not going to let anything happen to you," he corrected himself. "Even if they know, there's nothing they can do about it."
"Yeah, I know, babe." Kamio shut his eyes for a moment, his thoughts still racing. "But... I had to do something to get Akutsu away from here, right?" he explained. "I mean, hell. Yuushi, he snuck up on me down at the beach. I was completely off guard and he could probably tell something was... Off."
Reaching up, the redhead scrubbed a hand over his face. "I... Don't care if they know I was down there, but... I don't think it's a good idea for the Don to find out about you, Yuushi," he sighed. "And if Akutsu's been snooping around the house..." He frowned, sighed again, and admittedly softly, "He wanted to know why I was in Junon so I had to tell him... Something. To get him to leave us alone for a little while longer, ya know?"
Now Yuushi frowned, already an inkling of what Akira was talking about forming in his mind. "They can't do anything to u-me either. You didn't tell Akutsu about your GeoStigma...did you?" He turned his lover around, looking down into his eyes, his hands firm on Kamio's upper arms. Akira never could lie well to him. The proof was on his face. "You did...why would you do that?"
Kamio averted his gaze from Yuushi's and sighed.
"Because I don't want them to know about you... Either of you," he pointed out, "not right now. And Akutsu was pressing for answers I panicked, okay? Babe, shit." The redhead closed his eyes, leaned forward, forehead against Yuushi's shoulder, and sighed. "I know you think they can't do anything, but Yuushi... This is Yukimura we're talking about, you know?"
The redhead hunched his shoulders up, the fur ruff of his jacket brushing just under his ears. The situation between Yuushi and Yukimura had never been... Comfortable. Yes, Kamio knew that to some degree, Yukimura kept his 'men' -- Kamio himself included -- on a pretty tight leash, and that sometimes the fact that Kamio had to be at the Don's call bothered his lover. But, all in all, there were a lot worse men in Midgar to work for.
Yukimura, for all his power, was hardly one of the most abhorrent Dons in Wall Market's history.
"I don't like lying to my boss, Yuushi," he quietly admitted.
That rankled. Not that Kamio was so loyal to the Don despite his independent nature, but that he'd put himself and the illness he'd been so careful to keep a secret out in the open. Just to protect him.
"You've been lying by omission to him since day one," he pointed out.
"Didn't exactly volunteer it to you either, Yuushi," Kamio countered, his voice flat. Because, honestly, if he'd truly had the option, he wouldn't have told anyone -- not Yuushi, not Jun, not Shinji. Had the fever not gotten so bad the last time he was in Junon...
Kamio sighed again, deeply. "Anyway, it's too late to worry about me telling him or not," he muttered. "Akutsu probably called him the moment he had a chance. Yukimura knows now." And that...?
That was going to be a problem.
Yuushi rapidly assessed the situation. "It’s so coincidental that we're staying at a clinic known to be researching your illness, then," he said dryly. "You have a ready alibi." One that he was appreciating more and more, now. The more he'd been listening to his uncle describe what they did here, the more he wanted Akira to be looked at. But talking his lover into it wasn't something that was so easy, and he'd been considering simply telling his family about Akira's GeoStigma and let them take it from there.
But this would work far better. He could almost thank Yukimura and Akutsu for butting their noses in. "Yukimura may want more proof, however. Maybe you should at least have a checkup with Uncle Ryuusuke or Kenya."
"Yeah, well," Kamio sighed, shifting uncomfortably, and admitted, "that's what I thought. I... I told Akutsu that the 'stigma was why I'm here, Yuushi." He hadn't explicitly stated that he was seeing one of the Oshitari doctors, of course, but the implications had been there.
Implications that Kamio needed to back up.
"I know he's gonna want proof," Kamio agreed. "So, yeah... That's what I was thinking about. I mean, that's what they're doing here anyway, but... If Akutsu or one of Yukimura's men come around here asking questions, they might need to tell him that I've been their patient since I got here?" He curled his nose, and glanced up at Yuushi. "Not sure how they're gonna feel about lying for me, babe."
"I doubt they'd give Yukimura that much information. Then again, how much would they be lying if you really were their patient?" Yuushi let his fingers brush gently through the ends of Kamio's hair. His family could do so much more for Akira than he possibly could at this point. Maybe they couldn't cure him just yet, but even if they could make Akira feel better, he'd be more grateful than he could possibly express.
"You're their family too, now," he murmured, drawing his lover closer.
Kamio heaved a deep breath, eyes closed and lips tight. "Not really used to... Depending on 'family', Yuushi," he pointed out softly.
If anything, he was used to quite the opposite; his parents had been dead for as far back as he could remember, and though he'd had a sister once, he'd not seen or heard from her since a family had taken her away from the orphanage that he'd lived in while in Edge -- despite her promises that she'd at least write. The idea that blood somehow mattered in the overall scheme of thing had become foreign to him. The only thing that had ever mattered in Midgar was who was willing to have your back in a fight.
And even then, you couldn't always trust that person either.
Except... This was Yuushi, and Yuushi, at the very least, trusted his family. Biting his lower lip, the redhead swallowed. "Okay, so... Who do we need to talk to?"
"Whoever we find first," Yuushi decided, taking his lover's hand and pulling him away from the fence, back to the Oshitari home. Since he'd avoided them when he left, he couldn't be sure who was free and who wasn't, but chanced were his uncle or Kenya were available to discuss this.
They found Kenya first, in the kitchen with his dark-haired patient who, Yuushi understood, had been dumped here to recuperate. There seemed to be some sort of cooking lesson going on, but it was hard to tell with the way Hikaru was griping.
"Can't you just up the heat until its boiling and then turn it down? What's the difference. It's faster, right?" the teenager groaned. "We're never gonna eat. I'm making a sandwich." He turned to spy the two in the doorway. "If you're looking for food, good luck. He says it has to simmer for five hours."
Stirring the large pot of stew, Kenya could only heave a sigh and shake his head at Zaizen’s impatience. “No, it doesn’t come out the same,” he started, trying to figure out the best way to explain to the younger man that allowing the dish to simmer on a low heat for a long time would, in fact, make it taste a lot better.
Outside of starting a second pot and doing it the way Zaizen was demanding, then letting him taste the difference himself…
Which actually wasn’t a bad idea, Kenya figured; he turned to suggest it, eyes going briefly over his cousin, standing in the doorway, but the words never got out of his mouth. Instead, his gaze stopped on the shorter redhead standing just behind the dark-haired Oshitari. Kenya had suspected, ever since Kamio Akira and the Chocobo rider Swallow had shown up at his family’s house with his cousin in tow, that the redhead wasn’t well. Kamio tried to hide it, of course, but Kenya was familiar with the subtle signals the other did make -- itching, drinking nearly a potion a day.
His father had noticed too, and advised Kenya to not press the issue. It was, in the end, Kamio’s decision to tell them if he wanted to. If not, then there was nothing that they could do.
Kamio was, however, not looking at him right now. Or anyone else. He looked paler than average to Kenya, gaze listing off to one side and uncomfortable. Kenya glanced back at Yuushi, one eyebrow quirked.
His cousin wasn’t looking for food.
“Something wrong, Yuushi?” he asked, mild, as he turned back to the pot and knocked the wooden spoon against the rim to shake loose the excess sauce.
Glancing at the teenager--presently working on a mouthful of cheese while his hands busied themselves with bread--Yuushi's eyes darted back to his cousin. He barely remembered the man from their youth, a fact that saddened him a little. But Kenya, from what he'd seen, was a very capable and trustworthy man. Someone he knew he could trust Akira's illness to if need be.
And right now, they needed it.
"We're in need of some medical advice, cousin," he intoned, giving the doctor a meaningful look to convey that it needed to be private.
Kenya set his lips and knocked the wooden spoon against the rim of the pot. "Yeah, sure," he answered, as he set the spoon aside. "Hey, Hikaru, do me a favor. Ladle out a couple of cups of this in a smaller pot, set it aside, and then make sure that this doesn't boil," the blonde asked, stepping away from the kitchen counter. He shouldered past Yuushi and Kamio, still in the door.
"C'mon, we can go back to the exam room." Kenya motioned as he went, leading the two down the short hall between the family's living area and the large study at the back of his house that his father had converted a medical office. Kenya flipped on the overhead lights and took the two of them into one of the curtained-off exam rooms.
"Okay." Kenya pulled the curtain shut behind them and turned his attention to the still-silent redhead and his cousin. "So, what's going on, guys?"
Yuushi waited a moment for Kamio to speak up, but it looked like his lover wasn't interested in starting out the conversation. He should have guessed as much, though. Akira didn't like to talk about his illness period, much less to a doctor. So, leaning back against a wall with his arms crossed over his chest, he let out a soft sigh and spoke up. "Akira needs to become your patient, cousin. He has Geostigma." Saying it plainly helped them bypass a lot of the awkwardness and beating around the bush.
Kenya's gaze wasn't on Yuushi even as the other spoke. Instead he watched the redhead, noting the small ways the other's face tightened, and his shoulders drew up. Kamio still wasn't looking at him either -- and for all intents, looked like he'd rather be swallowed up by the floor than anything else right now.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.
Kenya sighed. "Yeah, we… Kind of guessed," he admitted, running fingers absently through blonde curls and cutting off Kamio's scowl and sudden, sharp "You wha--" with a shrug. "I've seen about ten dozen people with low level GS in the past year," he explained to them both. "That many people, you learn the signs."
Kamio's eyes were on him now, at least, narrow and wary. "Look, I can't make you let me treat you," Kenya sighed. "Not even if you let me take a look at it. But if you two are talking about to me about this, then I'm guessing you do want me to take a look at it."
The redhead set his job, eyes darting back over to Yuushi for a brief moment, then back to Kenya and nodded, swallowing nervously. "Yeah, that's what… We want," he muttered. Kenya closed his eyes and drew a slow breath.
"Okay, then. Why don't we start with you letting me see it, then?" he advised. As he spoke, he turned to the desk at the back of the small exam area. "I do you need to ask you some questions too," he added, "and while it would help if you'd answer them, you can say you prefer not to."
"Ch," Kamio sighed, slipping off his jacket and handing over to Yuushi. "Whatever."
Used to Kamio's recalcitrant attitude, Yuushi took the jacket without comment. A very small, slightly amused smile flitted over his face though. "I can answer some of them too, if Akira is too uncomfortable," he offered, glancing at his cousin.
Kenya nodded while he pulled out a clipboard and several sheets of blank paper. He left a pen on the desk nearby and pulled on some latex gloves. "Whichever is fine," he assured his cousin. "But he gets to decide if he even wants them answered before hand. Some are going to be about… Family history."
That had Kamio pausing as he stripped off his shirt, eyes widened ever so slightly.
Touchy subject, Kenya noted. "Don't worry if you don't want to answer them or can't," he reminded the redhead again. "Part of them are to try to establish any patterns in those who get the GS. Family medical history might be a factor." The vague answer only got him a slight tilt of the head from the redhead and another uncertain glare. "Go ahead and sit down on the cot so I can take a look at this," Kenya instructed, ignoring the other's hesitancy.
Kamio frowned and dropped himself onto the edge of the cot, his shirt left on the floor nearby. Around his right shoulder, Kenya noted a white-yellow bandage; it hadn't been changed recently then, he decided. "Here, let's get this off," he suggested, and before the redhead could pull away, started to peel the gauze from the wound. "Okay, so… First off, will you tell me your age if you know it?" The redhead replied with an uncertain, "Nineteen…"
Kenya nodded, making a mental note as he examined the black-grey rash spreading along the redhead's back. It wasn't the worst he'd seen, and in slowly prodding answers out of Kamio, he quickly learned that redhead had had the previous incarnation of the GeoStigma in Edge, that his parents, both SOLDIER, and sister had also had it -- the elder members of the family succumbing to the disease as many adults who had had it did -- and that the first traces of the disease had shown up about eight to nine months ago.
All in all, it was more information that Kenya normally got from one of his patients.
"I'd say on a scale of one to ten, that this is about… A three, in terms of how bad it is," the blonde decided aloud. "But it is growing, and pretty steadily." There was a grey outer ring around the darker, nastier looking central wound. "So, tell me, how much Potion or Materia do you use on average?"
Kamio blinked and glanced over at Yuushi, perplexed. "I-- Not that much?" he started, uncertain still. Hell, he'd never kept track of it.
"At least one a day," Yuushi overrode. He stayed with Akira enough to be able to say this with certainty, along with Shinji's reports. "It depends on how much its bothering him. Lately he's switched to hi-potions." Or at least he had because Yuushi had been supplying them. "Should he not be?"
Hi-potions, huh?
Kenya thinned his lips thoughtfully for a few moment, and then sighed. "Here's where we're going to have to get into theory," he answered, voice soft. "Dad thinks that maybe -- maybe -- there is something about Mako energy that sets off the GeoStigma itself, and that using anything Mako energy based might be aggravating it in people who already have it. But we don't have physical correlation."
The blonde paused again, aware that he'd already pushed the redhead far outside his comfort zone. Logic told him that anything further might be too much for the younger man -- but he only had one other patient who came back. And Zaizen's Mako addiction made testing the theory out on him impossible.
Kenya inhaled. "I would like you to stop using Potions," Kenya said calmly. "And let me track how this develops."
Kamio had turned his head to look up at the blonde through the strands of his fringe. "Are you nuts?" he snapped at the blonde.
"I have things that can be put on it," Kenya interrupted before the redhead went into a tirade.
Yuushi absorbed this, wondering if it were possible that he'd been aiding Akira's GeoStigma this whole time. The thought made him a little sick. "I take it these things aren't contaminated with Mako," he commented, trying his best not to sound as upset as he felt. "Akira...it's worth a try," he added softly, his eyes fixed on the redhead's shirt, still laying on the floor. "It's worth it to try anything to slow it down at least."
"No, no Mako," Kenya answered. "Everything that it's in them is… Natural. The creams are plant-based. I can prescribe pain-killers too, if the pain gets that bad. Taken in small doses, the only side-effect should be drowsiness, but I'd prefer to keep an eye on you if you have to them."
Kamio swallowed hard again and pressed his palm against the bridge of his nose. "Shit," he breathed. "Shit… F-fine. What'd I need to do?"
"Just stay here for a couple of minutes. I'll go get the salve and some more gauze. That's going to need changed more often," the blonde-half scolded as he slipped out of the curtain and headed to the back room of the examination office.