Shinobi and Nolan - Backdated
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ax_mainNolan has a favor to ask Shinobi. So naturally, he fixes them cocktails.
It was only day two of their cohabitation, and already Nolan found himself forced to have a serious conversation with Shinobi. It wasn't that he disliked having those, but usually the ones they had dealt with business. Those were easy to have. Of course, this would still be easier than their last one, and Nolan's confession of his brain's incapacity to deal with his visions. But he was still not looking forward to it.
There was no better way to have that sort of conversation than over alcohol, and so he had just finished fixing two old-fashioneds when Shinobi walked through their door and into their room.
Nolan could not help but start, before relaxing with a huff of a laugh. "This'll take some getting used to."
"I am a vision, I know," said Shinobi immodestly as he stepped clear of the door and gave a bow--this one more theatrical than traditional Japanese courtesy. His three-piece suit was a bottle-green, herringbone pattern ... and just a little difficult to look at directly, possibly by design. He stepped forward and flopped stomach-first onto his bed, holding out his hand for the extra drink Nolan had obviously prepared for him. Such a considerate fellow. He would have to do something nice for him, sometime.
"What's the occasion? Or are we simply toasting our youth, beauty, and nigh-incalculable wealth?"
"That's a lovely toast," Nolan assured Shinobi, glad that he had changed out of the red shirt he had worn this morning and into a double set of polos, the top one a solid dark blue. There was only so much jarring this room could take, and the green of Shinobi's suit would have crossed the line from brilliant into impossible off of the red of his shirt.
He handed Shinobi the lowball, then raised his own. "Let's drink to that, and then you can tell me why Simon Tam thinks you don't like him."
Shinobi had the glass raised to his mouth by the time Nolan's other statement registered, and had him snorting despite himself--and very much in danger of spraying perfectly good alcohol across the room. "Simon Tam? Well, I suppose our first meeting didn't go off quite as well as one might have hoped. But what do you care, either way? Is this some sort of nouveau riche solidarity thing?"
"Is he a - no," Nolan answered, cutting himself off before he could ask. It did not matter when Simon's family came into their money. "And please don't waste a perfect cocktail." He'd taken a sip himself, and sat on his bed, facing Shinobi. He turned the glass in his hands for a second, then asked, "Do you know what his mutation is?" It was hardly a secret, with the way it was plastered on the school's social network.
"Something to do with touch," Shinobi sniffed dismissively. "And something he apparently decided to keep hidden, up until recently. The outrage is a bit staggering, really. I mean, who doesn't have a few secrets? But I can't say I've been interested enough to pay the details or the furor that much attention."
"He can read people's bodies," Nolan answered, the offhanded quality to his tone now a little more studied than usual. For the same reason as he was looking down at his glass, instead of at Shinobi. He nearly looked up at his friend, but he was not sure that he was ready for anyone, even Shinobi, to read as much in his eyes as there had to be, just then. "Their entire physiologies."
"I see." Shinobi drained half his glass in a swallow, and returned his gaze to Nolan with watery, perhaps mildly accusing eyes. "And you let him 'read' you, I suppose?" He sighed. He supposed that, in the same position, he might have done the same. It still rankled, somewhat. "So? What's the prognosis?"
"There's some hope," Nolan answered, direly wishing they would go back to talking about Simon, rather than himself. But the sooner he got this out of the way, the better. "Some drugs they're putting me on. To slow down the damage, at least."
"Sou desu ka," Shinobi muttered, then scrubbed a hand across his face. "Well. That's a promising turn of events, at least, and well worth drinking to. Though it will be far more satisfying when they tell me you're likely to lead a long, happy life, and survive to bury me and reap the benefits of the no-doubt generous provisions I will make for you in my will." He sighed. "All that aside. Why are you bringing up the estimable Master Tam to me? He still owes me an apology, you know."
"Do I want to ask why?" Nolan replied with raised eyebrows and a somewhat pained expression. But at least they were moving on from talking about his brain damage, and from the event of Shinobi's death. He couldn't help but think back to that awful, ridiculous vision, and dismissed it.
Shinobi harrumphed, and returned his attention to his glass. "He can explain it, if he cares to. I'm still not sure why we're talking about him at all, frankly. It's not as if we haven't seen each other in months, or anything, and have more pleasant things we could be discussing."
"He's afraid you'll out him to his father," Nolan pressed on, regardless of Shinobi's desire to move on. He owed Simon, and he would make good on this. "I'd... consider it a personal favor if you didn't use that fear against him." He did not think that Shinobi would out Simon out of spite, for a variety of reasons, some of them pragmatic. But it was a golden opportunity for blackmail, if Shinobi ever found something to blackmail Simon for.
"Qu'est-ce que tu as dit? He said what?" He pressed a hand to his face. "While you were in the medical lab. With your life very much in question. That was his concern?"
Nolan frowned. "What? No," he immediately replied. "No. After the exam was concluded, and he'd done everything he could for me, I told him that if there was any way I could repay him..."
Humming discontentedly to himself, Shinobi rolled onto his back and thrust his glass out toward Nolan. "And he thought this was appropriate repayment. Honestly? He managed to annoy me, and I won't pretend that's all water under the bridge. But obviously I'll let it go, if that's what you want. No outing. No blackmail. Let him wrestle with his own conscience to his heart's content." He raised an eyebrow, beneath the bottom of his glass. "I can still tease him though, can't I? I feel I should get something from this arrangement."
Happy with the concession, Nolan was all too ready to accept Shinobi's terms. "Tease away." He trusted Shinobi to stop shy of risking turning Simon against Nolan, through their association.
"Good. Attempting to rein in that impulse could very well have caused my head to explode. And that would have been a tragedy."
That hit a little too close to home, but Nolan took one last sip from his glass to hide it. "I do like your head." He finally reached out to take Shinobi's empty glass, and moved back to his desk. "Same?"
"Most people do," Shinobi agreed with a nod, holding out his glass. "And yes, another would be lovely." His face screwed up in concern-mixed-with-dread. "Wait, none of the medications they're putting you on interact with alcohol, do they? We don't have to convert to a dry room?" The thought was too horrifying to long comprehend ... but, for Nolan, he might just be willing to make the sacrifice. He'd just have to begin stashing his booze in the walls and underneath the floorboards, or something.
"All in moderation," Nolan replied, busying himself with making another round of cocktails. He was starting the treatment in the morning, and would not begrudge himself one last night of fancy drinks. "But even if I had to go cold turkey, do you really think I'd ask you to do the same?"
He ought to look into alcohol-free cocktails, however, or he was not sure how he would get through it.
"The joy of having friends, Nolan," Shinobi told him, turning back onto stomach and sitting up again as he waited for his refreshed drink, "is that you don't have to ask. I know you're rusty, so I'll not be too dreadfully offended this time."
"You'd add insult to injury?" Nolan inquired offhandedly, and turned back to Shinobi to hand him the finished drink. "If I'm not going to be able to enjoy a good drink whenever I want, I'd like to think that you would, at least."
"I deplore violence of all kinds--I only add insult to earlier, equally clever insult." Shinobi shrugged, then took the glass from Nolan. "And you may rely on it! But it would be a theoretical enjoyment. Abstinence can be very slightly more bearable when it seems like a shared privation; in solitude, I can't think of a worse sort of torture."
Well, it seemed vastly better than dying, but Nolan was hardly going to voice that thought. No, no. No doom and gloom between them. "I'll look into extravagant alcohol-free cocktails. That should help." He raised his glass at Shinobi, then took a drink, settling back on his bed. He arranged his pillow to sit against the headboard, then sighed. "I miss having a couch."
"I'm fairly certain you could afford a couch, Nolan, if you really wanted one," Shinobi said, eyebrows raised humorously. "Though you would certainly have to decide between it and a bed. I've fallen asleep on enough examples of both to suggest that the distinction between them is usually a bit ephemeral. Though I do drink a lot, so I simply may not have noticed."
"No room in here for a couch big enough that it wouldn't result in a crink in my neck," Nolan pointed out, reaching over to take off his shoes and sit cross-legged, reclining against the pillow. The entire conversation had left him in an odd mood - not the part about Simon, but having had to acknowledge the restrictions being on that treatment would put on him. The wonderful Sharon Friedlander had listed the possible side effects when he had asked her to, and - but no. He put the thoughts firmly from his mind, and instead suggested the crazier idea he could come up with on the spot. "Perhaps we should talk to Professor Xavier about building an auxiliary dorm house. Something with proper apartments for everyone."
"You see? This is precisely why we need you around for the next fifty or sixty years. It's genius, Nolan. Certainly, the grounds are spacious enough. And I'm reasonably sure I can coax Shaw Industries into making a tax-deductible donation to the project."
Nolan laughed, the way he rarely let himself laugh around anyone. Firmly ignoring that bit about his potentially all too short life and focusing on the thought of Shinobi actually going through with it, of course. "Here's to hoping I'll be able to get out of here long before construction is finished." And not on a gurney, thank you.
"Between wrangling over kickbacks to the zoning board and union labor in New York State, I'm fairly certain we can take that outcome for granted. We can call it the Nolan Ross dorm, since it was your idea. Though I insist there should be an atrium or an indoor pool or a particularly impressive hallway named after me."
"There should be a clandestine night club in the basement named after you," Nolan replied, smiling over at his friend. "Something with a karaoke room, of course."
"Obviously, there would be karaoke. But probably only on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are desperately in need of something going for them." His face wrinkled up suddenly in dissatisfaction. "What would we call it, though? Club Shinobi would make everyone think it's some sort of anime-themed establishment. And Club Shaw would remind me too much of my joyless Yeti of a father."
"You're the one who speaks Japanese, you come up with a perfect name none of us will pronounce right," Nolan retorted, and slid a hand under his head, straightening out one of his legs. He was actually, wonder of wonders, relaxing. He had no intention of wasting this last buzz of his.
Shinobi snorted. "Most Japanese club names are derived from some European loan-word or another." He hummed thoughtfully. "How about Chateau Sunobbu? That has enough latent irony in it to amuse me briefly."
"Sunobbu?" Nolan echoed. He still hadn't taken the Japanese classes he kept saying he would.
"Upstart," he said, then grimaced. "Actually, it's more like 'snob', but with a number of additional and completely unnecessary vowels attached. You know how the Japanese are. But the connotation is there."
Nolan smiled, tapping a thumb on his glass. "Chateau Sunobbu. I like it. I would definitely go."
"Well, there's no accounting for taste," Shinobi teased. "I'll make certain there's a VIP booth with your name on it."
"You know me well," Nolan appreciated with another small smile. He wasn't exactly a dancer, after all.
"And yet, we are still able to have pleasant interludes like this one," Shinobi grinned. "The odds are astronomical, I'm sure."
Nolan laughed again, and held his empty glass out to Shinobi. "Your turn to pour."
Sighing melodramatically, Shinobi slithered to his feet. "Slavedriver."
It was only day two of their cohabitation, and already Nolan found himself forced to have a serious conversation with Shinobi. It wasn't that he disliked having those, but usually the ones they had dealt with business. Those were easy to have. Of course, this would still be easier than their last one, and Nolan's confession of his brain's incapacity to deal with his visions. But he was still not looking forward to it.
There was no better way to have that sort of conversation than over alcohol, and so he had just finished fixing two old-fashioneds when Shinobi walked through their door and into their room.
Nolan could not help but start, before relaxing with a huff of a laugh. "This'll take some getting used to."
"I am a vision, I know," said Shinobi immodestly as he stepped clear of the door and gave a bow--this one more theatrical than traditional Japanese courtesy. His three-piece suit was a bottle-green, herringbone pattern ... and just a little difficult to look at directly, possibly by design. He stepped forward and flopped stomach-first onto his bed, holding out his hand for the extra drink Nolan had obviously prepared for him. Such a considerate fellow. He would have to do something nice for him, sometime.
"What's the occasion? Or are we simply toasting our youth, beauty, and nigh-incalculable wealth?"
"That's a lovely toast," Nolan assured Shinobi, glad that he had changed out of the red shirt he had worn this morning and into a double set of polos, the top one a solid dark blue. There was only so much jarring this room could take, and the green of Shinobi's suit would have crossed the line from brilliant into impossible off of the red of his shirt.
He handed Shinobi the lowball, then raised his own. "Let's drink to that, and then you can tell me why Simon Tam thinks you don't like him."
Shinobi had the glass raised to his mouth by the time Nolan's other statement registered, and had him snorting despite himself--and very much in danger of spraying perfectly good alcohol across the room. "Simon Tam? Well, I suppose our first meeting didn't go off quite as well as one might have hoped. But what do you care, either way? Is this some sort of nouveau riche solidarity thing?"
"Is he a - no," Nolan answered, cutting himself off before he could ask. It did not matter when Simon's family came into their money. "And please don't waste a perfect cocktail." He'd taken a sip himself, and sat on his bed, facing Shinobi. He turned the glass in his hands for a second, then asked, "Do you know what his mutation is?" It was hardly a secret, with the way it was plastered on the school's social network.
"Something to do with touch," Shinobi sniffed dismissively. "And something he apparently decided to keep hidden, up until recently. The outrage is a bit staggering, really. I mean, who doesn't have a few secrets? But I can't say I've been interested enough to pay the details or the furor that much attention."
"He can read people's bodies," Nolan answered, the offhanded quality to his tone now a little more studied than usual. For the same reason as he was looking down at his glass, instead of at Shinobi. He nearly looked up at his friend, but he was not sure that he was ready for anyone, even Shinobi, to read as much in his eyes as there had to be, just then. "Their entire physiologies."
"I see." Shinobi drained half his glass in a swallow, and returned his gaze to Nolan with watery, perhaps mildly accusing eyes. "And you let him 'read' you, I suppose?" He sighed. He supposed that, in the same position, he might have done the same. It still rankled, somewhat. "So? What's the prognosis?"
"There's some hope," Nolan answered, direly wishing they would go back to talking about Simon, rather than himself. But the sooner he got this out of the way, the better. "Some drugs they're putting me on. To slow down the damage, at least."
"Sou desu ka," Shinobi muttered, then scrubbed a hand across his face. "Well. That's a promising turn of events, at least, and well worth drinking to. Though it will be far more satisfying when they tell me you're likely to lead a long, happy life, and survive to bury me and reap the benefits of the no-doubt generous provisions I will make for you in my will." He sighed. "All that aside. Why are you bringing up the estimable Master Tam to me? He still owes me an apology, you know."
"Do I want to ask why?" Nolan replied with raised eyebrows and a somewhat pained expression. But at least they were moving on from talking about his brain damage, and from the event of Shinobi's death. He couldn't help but think back to that awful, ridiculous vision, and dismissed it.
Shinobi harrumphed, and returned his attention to his glass. "He can explain it, if he cares to. I'm still not sure why we're talking about him at all, frankly. It's not as if we haven't seen each other in months, or anything, and have more pleasant things we could be discussing."
"He's afraid you'll out him to his father," Nolan pressed on, regardless of Shinobi's desire to move on. He owed Simon, and he would make good on this. "I'd... consider it a personal favor if you didn't use that fear against him." He did not think that Shinobi would out Simon out of spite, for a variety of reasons, some of them pragmatic. But it was a golden opportunity for blackmail, if Shinobi ever found something to blackmail Simon for.
"Qu'est-ce que tu as dit? He said what?" He pressed a hand to his face. "While you were in the medical lab. With your life very much in question. That was his concern?"
Nolan frowned. "What? No," he immediately replied. "No. After the exam was concluded, and he'd done everything he could for me, I told him that if there was any way I could repay him..."
Humming discontentedly to himself, Shinobi rolled onto his back and thrust his glass out toward Nolan. "And he thought this was appropriate repayment. Honestly? He managed to annoy me, and I won't pretend that's all water under the bridge. But obviously I'll let it go, if that's what you want. No outing. No blackmail. Let him wrestle with his own conscience to his heart's content." He raised an eyebrow, beneath the bottom of his glass. "I can still tease him though, can't I? I feel I should get something from this arrangement."
Happy with the concession, Nolan was all too ready to accept Shinobi's terms. "Tease away." He trusted Shinobi to stop shy of risking turning Simon against Nolan, through their association.
"Good. Attempting to rein in that impulse could very well have caused my head to explode. And that would have been a tragedy."
That hit a little too close to home, but Nolan took one last sip from his glass to hide it. "I do like your head." He finally reached out to take Shinobi's empty glass, and moved back to his desk. "Same?"
"Most people do," Shinobi agreed with a nod, holding out his glass. "And yes, another would be lovely." His face screwed up in concern-mixed-with-dread. "Wait, none of the medications they're putting you on interact with alcohol, do they? We don't have to convert to a dry room?" The thought was too horrifying to long comprehend ... but, for Nolan, he might just be willing to make the sacrifice. He'd just have to begin stashing his booze in the walls and underneath the floorboards, or something.
"All in moderation," Nolan replied, busying himself with making another round of cocktails. He was starting the treatment in the morning, and would not begrudge himself one last night of fancy drinks. "But even if I had to go cold turkey, do you really think I'd ask you to do the same?"
He ought to look into alcohol-free cocktails, however, or he was not sure how he would get through it.
"The joy of having friends, Nolan," Shinobi told him, turning back onto stomach and sitting up again as he waited for his refreshed drink, "is that you don't have to ask. I know you're rusty, so I'll not be too dreadfully offended this time."
"You'd add insult to injury?" Nolan inquired offhandedly, and turned back to Shinobi to hand him the finished drink. "If I'm not going to be able to enjoy a good drink whenever I want, I'd like to think that you would, at least."
"I deplore violence of all kinds--I only add insult to earlier, equally clever insult." Shinobi shrugged, then took the glass from Nolan. "And you may rely on it! But it would be a theoretical enjoyment. Abstinence can be very slightly more bearable when it seems like a shared privation; in solitude, I can't think of a worse sort of torture."
Well, it seemed vastly better than dying, but Nolan was hardly going to voice that thought. No, no. No doom and gloom between them. "I'll look into extravagant alcohol-free cocktails. That should help." He raised his glass at Shinobi, then took a drink, settling back on his bed. He arranged his pillow to sit against the headboard, then sighed. "I miss having a couch."
"I'm fairly certain you could afford a couch, Nolan, if you really wanted one," Shinobi said, eyebrows raised humorously. "Though you would certainly have to decide between it and a bed. I've fallen asleep on enough examples of both to suggest that the distinction between them is usually a bit ephemeral. Though I do drink a lot, so I simply may not have noticed."
"No room in here for a couch big enough that it wouldn't result in a crink in my neck," Nolan pointed out, reaching over to take off his shoes and sit cross-legged, reclining against the pillow. The entire conversation had left him in an odd mood - not the part about Simon, but having had to acknowledge the restrictions being on that treatment would put on him. The wonderful Sharon Friedlander had listed the possible side effects when he had asked her to, and - but no. He put the thoughts firmly from his mind, and instead suggested the crazier idea he could come up with on the spot. "Perhaps we should talk to Professor Xavier about building an auxiliary dorm house. Something with proper apartments for everyone."
"You see? This is precisely why we need you around for the next fifty or sixty years. It's genius, Nolan. Certainly, the grounds are spacious enough. And I'm reasonably sure I can coax Shaw Industries into making a tax-deductible donation to the project."
Nolan laughed, the way he rarely let himself laugh around anyone. Firmly ignoring that bit about his potentially all too short life and focusing on the thought of Shinobi actually going through with it, of course. "Here's to hoping I'll be able to get out of here long before construction is finished." And not on a gurney, thank you.
"Between wrangling over kickbacks to the zoning board and union labor in New York State, I'm fairly certain we can take that outcome for granted. We can call it the Nolan Ross dorm, since it was your idea. Though I insist there should be an atrium or an indoor pool or a particularly impressive hallway named after me."
"There should be a clandestine night club in the basement named after you," Nolan replied, smiling over at his friend. "Something with a karaoke room, of course."
"Obviously, there would be karaoke. But probably only on Wednesdays. Wednesdays are desperately in need of something going for them." His face wrinkled up suddenly in dissatisfaction. "What would we call it, though? Club Shinobi would make everyone think it's some sort of anime-themed establishment. And Club Shaw would remind me too much of my joyless Yeti of a father."
"You're the one who speaks Japanese, you come up with a perfect name none of us will pronounce right," Nolan retorted, and slid a hand under his head, straightening out one of his legs. He was actually, wonder of wonders, relaxing. He had no intention of wasting this last buzz of his.
Shinobi snorted. "Most Japanese club names are derived from some European loan-word or another." He hummed thoughtfully. "How about Chateau Sunobbu? That has enough latent irony in it to amuse me briefly."
"Sunobbu?" Nolan echoed. He still hadn't taken the Japanese classes he kept saying he would.
"Upstart," he said, then grimaced. "Actually, it's more like 'snob', but with a number of additional and completely unnecessary vowels attached. You know how the Japanese are. But the connotation is there."
Nolan smiled, tapping a thumb on his glass. "Chateau Sunobbu. I like it. I would definitely go."
"Well, there's no accounting for taste," Shinobi teased. "I'll make certain there's a VIP booth with your name on it."
"You know me well," Nolan appreciated with another small smile. He wasn't exactly a dancer, after all.
"And yet, we are still able to have pleasant interludes like this one," Shinobi grinned. "The odds are astronomical, I'm sure."
Nolan laughed again, and held his empty glass out to Shinobi. "Your turn to pour."
Sighing melodramatically, Shinobi slithered to his feet. "Slavedriver."
