Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6800515.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Durarara!!
  Relationship:
      Heiwajima_Shizuo/Orihara_Izaya, Heiwajima_Shizuo_&_Orihara_Izaya
  Character:
      Heiwajima_Shizuo, Heiwajima_Kasuka, Orihara_Izaya, Celty_Sturluson,
      Kishitani_Shinra, Orihara_Mairu, Orihara_Kururi, Nakura_(Durarara!!),
      Shiki_Haruya, Simon_Brezhnev, Izumii_Ran, Togusa_Saburo, Kadota_Kyouhei,
      Earthworm_(Durarara!!), Vorona_(Durarara!!), Heiwajima_Shizuo's_Mother
  Additional Tags:
      Developing_Relationship, Best_Friends, Friends_to_Lovers, Childhood
      Friends, Violence, Blood, Strength_Kink, Mutual_Pining, Worry, Broken
      Bones, Masochism, Living_Together, Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence,
      Jealousy, Alcohol, Underage_Drinking, Bruises, Smoking, Knives, Holding
      Hands, Concussions, Love_Confessions, Sexual_Fantasy, Cooking, Snow,
      Sushi, Hand_Jobs, Blow_Jobs, Grinding, Self-Hatred, Masturbation
  Series:
      Part 4 of Nothing_in_the_World
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-05-30 Completed: 2016-11-29 Chapters: 62/62 Words: 160182
****** Protest Too Much ******
by tastewithouttalent
Summary
     "There is nothing in the world Heiwajima Shizuo would like more than
     to be able to be a normal middle schooler, with normal hobbies, and
     normal friends, and a calm, boring, normal life." Heiwajima Shizuo is
     unusual by the time he's in middle school, and his new best friend is
     unlikely to help him fit in.
***** Dismissal *****
Heiwajima Shizuo is a legend.
He never wanted to be. There is nothing in the world he’d like more than to be
able to be a normal middle schooler, with normal hobbies, and normal friends,
and a calm, boring, normal life. But he’s been doomed to abnormality since he
was in elementary school and lifted the weight of his family’s refrigerator
over his head in a fit of anger, and the older he gets the more dramatic his
fits of fury have become. In elementary school it was fenceposts and the
occasional storage locker; now it’s playground equipment, whole frames for
swingsets or basketball hoops that tear out of the ground like flowers uprooted
from damp soil when Shizuo gets his hands on them. He never means to cause the
destruction he does any more than he means to shatter his bones over and over
until his body finally catches up to the demands his strength places upon it;
it just happens, like the sun coming up over the horizon every morning.
Something happens to set him off -- a passing insult about Kasuka’s hair
looking like a girl’s, or someone bragging about getting away with cheating, or
a delinquent bullying a transfer student -- and Shizuo snaps, like a matchstick
in a normal person’s hand or a steel bar in his, and it’s not until the cause
of his irritation and any accidental bystanders are lying unconscious or
unwilling to move around his feet that the adrenaline that roars through him
like a flame releases him to his own life again.
He hates it. He never wanted fame, certainly never asked for the notoriety that
comes with the inhuman feats of strength he performs all unthinkingly in the
midst of the blind rage that closes its grip on his body sometimes, that steers
him through actions his calmer self would never even contemplate. But it’s
notoriety he has, his name a byword in the school halls before his first year
of middle school is half over, and after a poorly timed joke in his new
homeroom led to a desk crashing through a window Shizuo is fairly sure his
second year is off to an even worse start than his first.
You should join a club, Kasuka always tells him whenever Shizuo comes home
bloody and bruised and seething with the irritation of another day’s worth of
fighting off other students more interested in testing their own stupidity
against his strength than in the friendship that Shizuo is far more interested
in. Meet people that share interests with you. Make some friends. But Shizuo
knows the way the other students look at him, sees the way his classroom goes
silent and cringing when he walks into it, and he’s not interested in trying to
prove himself worth a friendship he knows will disintegrate the first time he
loses his grip on his ever-volatile temper. The only people who have ever put
up with him are Kasuka himself and Kishitani Shinra, and the first is bound to
him by the connection of family and the second Shizuo suspects to be lacking
some fundamental core of sound judgment. There’s no way he’s going to be able
to join an existing club, not when the members are composed of second- and
third-years who know the name Heiwajima Shizuo better than they know his face,
who laugh about the risk of pissing him off and flinch when they see him close
enough to overhear. The only students who would be willing to join a club with
him even temporarily would be first-years, the unfamiliar faces who don’t know
Shizuo from elementary school, who don’t know anything about him or his temper
or the strength that goes with it, and even then they’re likely to leave as
soon as they find out.
“Stupid,” Shizuo growls at his feet as he makes his way down the hallways left
deserted by the end of the school day, glaring at the toes of his shoes as if
they are personally responsible for the itch of irritation forming in his
chest, for the frustration that always settles into him when he tries to find
an escape from his current situation. No one would join a club with someone
they don’t know, with some senpai who asked them out of the blue to form one.
It’s pointless, it’s a stupid idea even to consider; but he can still hear
Kasuka’s voice, that level join a club like it’s the most obvious thing in the
world, and for just a moment he can see it, too, can imagine the comfort of
company, of friendship, of someone who knows him well enough that even when
anger takes over they might stay, might choose to spend time with him instead
of flinching back to the sidelines of his life where everyone else lingers.
It’s an alluring image, one that twists something sharp and painful in Shizuo’s
chest; and then he lifts his head to look down the hallway, and as if on cue
another student comes around the corner in front of him.
Shizuo doesn’t know him. The boy has dark hair, narrow shoulders, a downward
tilt to his chin like he’s lost in his own thoughts; he barely glances up at
Shizuo as they approach each other, offers only the barest flicker of attention
over the other before he looks back down to resume whatever he was thinking of
before. It’s a dismissal, a careless brushing aside of Shizuo as unimportant,
as uninteresting on some fundamental level, and it stops Shizuo’s feet dead in
their tracks. Adrenaline flickers through him, shock and disbelief warring
inside his chest at that casual glance. Shizuo can’t remember the last time
someone ignored him so completely, can’t recall the last interaction he had
with someone so patently unaware of his reputation. It’s that reaction as much
as the other’s uniform that marks him as a first year, the fact that he clearly
doesn’t have the least idea or interest in who Shizuo is that indicates his
naivete, and it’s that that opens Shizuo’s mouth to spill a “Hey,” at the dark
of the other’s bowed head to draw his interest back to Shizuo’s face.
The other boy doesn’t look up. There’s no one else Shizuo could be talking to -
- the hallway is empty but for the two of them in the space -- but the other
doesn’t blink, doesn’t even lift his head to so much as glance at Shizuo. It’s
as if Shizuo hasn’t spoken, as if the clear sound of his voice wasn’t enough
for the other to hear. Shizuo frowns, tries again: “Hey,” louder, as the first-
year continues to move towards him. This is no more effective than the first
attempt, Shizuo’s voice going as unnoticed with repetition as in his initial
trial, and Shizuo can feel the first prickle of irritation under his skin, can
feel the beginnings of anger threatening at the base of his spine at being so
obviously and completely ignored. He scowls at the approaching boy, his chest
tightening on anger so the next call comes out as a shout. “Oi.”
The first-year’s head comes up at that, finally, his attention pulled to Shizuo
as his pace stumbles to a stop. It’s only reasonable; Shizuo is all but yelling
in his face, with the gap between them so small it would be impossible to
pretend ignorance. Their eyes meet for a moment, Shizuo’s glare catching
against the other’s startled gaze; then the other boy blinks, the first bright
of surprise flickering away so fast Shizuo barely has time to see it at all.
His attention drops, skimming over Shizuo’s whole body in a once-over so brief
as to be almost insulting, and then his mouth relaxes and his gaze comes back
to meet Shizuo’s scowl with dismissal so abundantly clear as to do away with
any question of almost.
“Were you talking to me?” the other boy asks, dragging the words long in the
back of his throat as if they’re a taunt to action. His head tips to the side,
adopting an angle of feigned innocence that comes nowhere near touching the
level arrogance of his gaze. “Senpai.”
Shizuo’s throat tightens, his breath rushing out of him past the aching tension
of his clenched teeth to spill into a hiss in the quiet of the hallway. His
shoulders are hunching, rage is crawling up his spine with teeth and claws
bared, ready to sink its grip into the back of his skull and take control of
his actions for the next few seconds; it would be satisfying, Shizuo knows it
would be, it would be a pleasure to crush his fist into the lopsided twist of
the other boy’s mouth just to see the unfeigned shock that would hit his
expression at the unexpected retaliation to his mockery. His fingers are
curling in against his palms, his knuckles are tensing on the expectation of
adrenaline; and Kasuka’s voice echoes in his head, make some friends like an
admonishment to the anger trying to bleed itself into Shizuo’s veins, and some
of the tension in his shoulders eases to give way to the dejected slump he
carried before. He looks sideways, away from the taunt behind the first-year’s
smile and the suggestion of blood in the color of his eyes, out to the gold of
the sun sinking to the horizon and the cluster of students by the gate, to the
bright of conversation and the easy laughter that Shizuo wants so much he can
feel the loneliness ache under his skin more acutely even than the weight of
the violence everready in him. He takes a breath, and thinks of Kasuka, and
when he says “Wanna start a club?” it’s with more resignation on his voice than
hope.
There’s silence for a long moment. Shizuo blinks the sunlight from his eyes,
and looks back, and the first-year is staring at him, his expression knocked
into that blank shock more effectively than even a punch would have managed.
There’s a crease forming at his forehead, confusion marking out a line between
his eyebrows, and then: “Is this some kind of an entrance test?” with his tone
far less certain now than he sounded a moment before.
“Anything you want,” Shizuo tells him, certain of the other’s refusal now but
with too much desperation in the back of his mind to let this go. Tomorrow the
first-years will start to know his name, and the day after they’ll start to
recognize his face, and then it will be too late, and his chance to make new
friends this school year will be lost as thoroughly as it was the last.
“Biology, or karaoke, or sports.”
The other boy is still staring confusion at him. “You want to start a baseball
team or something? I’m fast, but I can’t cover half the positions on my own.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes, sure now that the other boy isn’t listening to him at
all. “There’s already a baseball team,” he informs the first-year. “Whatever
you want, I just need a club to join.”
The crease in the other’s forehead eases, his expression falling back into that
dismissive understanding that sets Shizuo’s teeth on edge. “So you’re asking
the first first-year you meet?” He tips his head sideways, his eyelashes
fluttering dark on overdone apology. “Sorry, senpai, I have better things to do
than sing enka with you.” His voice is syrupy, dripping with condescension over
the false apology; Shizuo can feel his fingers drawing back into his briefly-
forgotten fists, can feel the temptation of anger curling up his spine again.
The first year takes a step back, lifting his hand in a flourish of motion to
match the flashing taunt of his lopsided smile. “Good luck kidnapping yourself
some friends.” Shizuo’s mouth comes open, his breath rushing out of him in
shock as sharp as if the other’s words carried the cut of a knife edge, and the
other boy pivots on his heel and moves down the hallway, walking so quickly
Shizuo barely has time to find the voice for “Wait” before he’s around the
corner and gone.
The conversation is over, Shizuo knows. The rush he makes to the corner is
useless even before he makes the turn to see the other wholly absent from view;
all the effort does is twist adrenaline hot in his veins and hiss frustration
past his teeth as his hand comes out to slam so hard against the wall the tile
under his fist cracks. Shizuo doesn’t look at the damage he did to the wall; he
just turns away down the hall and moves back in the direction he came with the
seething burn of irritation to take the place of his earlier melancholy.
He’s not sure that it’s much of an improvement.
***** Titles *****
Shizuo doesn’t know what started the fight.
It’s a strange claim to make, when he’s in the middle of a brawl that requires
him to crush his fist into the fragile give of cheekbones and noses, when he
has the remains of a soccer goal clutched in a hold so tight he half-expects to
leave fingerprints on the metal under his grip. But it’s the truth nonetheless,
the fact of reality ever more unbelievable than fiction would be, that he has
ended up -- again -- as the nexus for a fight he has little interest in and
less involvement with. He thinks it was another gang, from what brief
impressions he gets from the pattern of the jackets around him and the shocked
horror on unfamiliar faces before he catches them with a punch or a swing of
the metal pole in his hands and crushes the pattern of their features out of
recognition even to their parents. He wishes it was an unusual occurrence,
wishes this kind of unprompted fight were the exception in his life and not the
norm; but with nowhere to go but home after school, and no cluster of friends
to hide himself amidst, facing down a dozen or more gang members determined to
prove their worth is unfortunately ordinary. The only thing for it is to give
in to the flare of irritation at the back of his mind, to let the fire of his
anger uncoil through his body and seize control of his limbs, to surrender to
the adrenaline-fueled strength in him and let his own uncanny ability end the
fight for him rather than attempting the ever-futile pursuit of trying to find
a reason for it.
It’s over quickly. Shizuo doesn’t track the time passing -- there’s no space
for such when he falls into the fugue of blind rage that takes control of his
body and uses him to end fights someone else starts -- but by the time he’s
done the sun is still above the horizon, still casting orange-gold light across
the space around him like it’s the conclusion to some kind of action movie, as
if there’s any point at all to what Shizuo’s just done other than the raw
destruction that he hates. He can feel his lip throb with pain as the
adrenaline in him fades, can feel the warm wet of blood trickling from his
hairline and across his cheek, and he’s just feeling his breathing ease from
the panting rush of combat into the strain of too-fast inhales in his chest
when there’s a voice from over his shoulder, where there’s never a voice, from
an audience Shizuo thought long since relegated to the safe distance behind
closed doors and second-floor windows.
“Did they do something to offend you?”
Shizuo turns instantly, the lingering remnants of blistering adrenaline jerking
him into motion before his conscious mind has processed the words. His fingers
tighten on the metal in his hand, his aching mouth forms itself into the scowl
that is a warning no one ever heeds; but the voice doesn’t herald a new wave of
attackers, doesn’t bring a flood of bodies for Shizuo to mow through like he
did the first round. It’s just one boy, a middle school student so skinny that
even at a glance he looks like no kind of a threat, and Shizuo’s anger eases
into confusion as he watches his sole audience member approach with no
hesitation in his stride.
“Or is violence just your preferred method of communication?” The boy’s voice
is bright, sharp at the edges like a knife honed to a razor’s edge; Shizuo’s
spine prickles with irritation, with some remembered frustration too far back
for him to easily place, but then the other lifts his head, and meets Shizuo’s
gaze, and his mouth drags into a lopsided smile that Shizuo’s adrenaline
remembers far more clearly than his conscious awareness does.
“You,” he growls, recalled frustration taking over his voice, because it’s the
boy from the first day of school, the first-year who was so flippant about
rejecting Shizuo’s offer to form a club. Shizuo recognizes the cut of his smile
as much as the blood-red of his eyes, remembers the half-lidded taunt of his
gaze as clearly as the smirking tilt of his head as he narrows his gaze into
recognition.
“You should have told me you were the great Heiwajima Shizuo,” the other tells
him. His smile is irritating, his voice more so; Shizuo can feel his expression
tense on irritation as much from the barely-restrained laughter in the other’s
voice as from the taunt of the adjective affixed to his name. “Were you hoping
to get the best of an innocent first-year before we all learned what a monster
you are?”
Shizuo can feel the insult dig in under his skin, can feel the hiss of monster
settle against his spine like it fits there better than the humanity he has
tried to play at up until this point in his life. What anger was seething in
his veins flickers and dies, guilt sweeping in to take its place with as much
sour weight in his stomach as the lingering pain at his mouth. He looks away
from the first-year, turns aside from the amusement at the other’s mouth and
the shadow behind his eyes to look out towards the rest of the schoolyard
instead, at the slumped shapes of his attackers arrayed around him like
evidence for the other boy’s casual taunt.
“I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you,” Shizuo says, and lets the pole in
his hand drop to the ground. It clatters by his feet, the weight of it rolling
across the pavement before it comes to a halt, but his shoulders don’t feel any
lighter in its absence. “I just need to join a club.” It’s absolute truth.
Shizuo is offering the words as much for himself as for the other boy; there’s
too much weight in the back of his head to easily explain, too much history
written into the bruises on his knuckles and the blood on his tongue for him to
voice before his audience inevitably panics and leaves.
“None of the others good enough for you?” the other boy asks. There’s laughter
on his tongue, amusement audible in the back of his throat; Shizuo glances up
at him, scowling at the teasing resonance that he can hear on the other’s lips,
as if this is a joke, as if the daily struggle of Shizuo’s entire existence is
some kind of elaborate comedy routine. The other boy is staring at him, his
mouth still taut around that lopsided smile but his eyes dark with something
else, something that runs deeper than easy laughter; Shizuo can’t get a read on
it any more than he can interpret the forward hunch of the other’s narrow
shoulders towards him. “Or do you really have a burning desire for karaoke?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo snaps at him, the psychological hurt of the other’s jab
drawing more pain into him than any of his attackers achieved during the fight.
It’s not fair that the other can grin so bright when he’s throwing such sharp-
edged words, not fair that he can be so dismissive of the thing Shizuo wants
with a desire that only grows sharper with each day it becomes more impossible.
He meets the other boy’s crimson eyes, clinging to the self-defense of a glare
instead of letting the ache of hurt spill out to visibility over his features.
“If you’re not volunteering you can just go away.”
Shizuo is expecting the other boy to laugh. There should be a cough of sound, a
mockery of amusement ringing in his ears, and then Shizuo will growl and the
first-year will flinch backwards and that will be an end of it, the
relationship will die to a memory as rapidly as it formed. But: “I am” is what
he hears instead, agreement so clear-edged and loud Shizuo can’t imagine for
even a heartbeat that he misheard. Shizuo’s the one who draws back, confusion
sending his shoulders tipping away as if from some unseen threat, and the other
boy flashes his teeth in what might charitably be called a smile as he holds
Shizuo’s gaze.
“I am volunteering,” he repeats, slowly, enunciating every syllable to crystal
clarity as if Shizuo might not understand spoken language. His head tilts, his
eyebrow angles up into unvoiced amusement. “Unless you’ve changed your mind
too.”
Shizuo doesn’t know what to say. “What?” It’s not the other’s words he’s
struggling with, or at least not the basic components of their meaning; it’s
the meaning combined with the smile at the other’s mouth, linked to the tenor
of apparent sincerity on his lips until Shizuo can’t make any sense of the
whole. “Why?”
The first-year’s mouth twitches, threatening the beginning of a smile as he
stares down Shizuo’s gaze. “I misjudged you.” It should sound like an apology;
coupled with the way his mouth twists into a grin it feels more like a taunt,
as if the other has stolen something whose absence Shizuo hasn’t yet noticed.
“You’re interesting after all, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo stumbles backwards as if he’s been hit, as if the other boy’s words are
a blow far more effective than the useless impact of the fists and weapons that
he can shrug off like rainwater. “What?” he starts with, and then, hard on its
heels, while the other boy’s grin stretches into the all-over sparkle of mania
behind his eyes, while Shizuo struggles for coherent protest and finds only one
point simple enough to put voice to: “Don’t call me chan, I don’t even know
your name.”
“Orihara Izaya.” The answer comes immediately, as instantly as if the other
were just waiting the opportunity to volunteer this information, and he’s
stepping forward, deliberately encroaching into Shizuo’s personal space in a
movement so unexpected it leaves Shizuo reeling back before he has a chance for
anything other than reflex to lay claim to his actions. The other boy is still
smiling, his lips dragging into a lopsided smirk at his mouth like he knows
some secret about Shizuo that he’s not sharing; when he offers his hand he
makes it look like a threat, as if the casual angle of his fingers carries the
danger of an open blade. “You can call me Izaya,” he continues, his smile going
wider like he hasn’t noticed Shizuo recoiling from him, or as if it’s more
encouraging than it is off-putting. “I don’t mind.”
Shizuo frowns. “You can’t call me Shizu-chan,” he insists, but he’s reaching
for the other’s extended hand anyway, drilled-in response too strong for him to
ignore even for the aggressive impoliteness of the other boy’s introduction.
The other’s fingers feel fragile under his grip, like they’re made of glass and
likely to shatter if Shizuo presses too hard. Shizuo flinches from the thought,
reflex suggesting that he draw his hand free before he accidentally does damage
to the delicate bones; but Izaya’s hand is tightening on Shizuo’s, his
fingertips catching and digging at the bruises on Shizuo’s knuckles, and Shizuo
can’t pull his hand free without wrenching loose of the pressure of the other’s
hold. He grimaces instead, his mouth collapsing into a frown as he braces his
hold around Izaya’s hand as deliberately gently as he knows how, and when he
speaks it’s with the simplicity of sincerity on his tongue. “I’m your senpai.”
Izaya’s mouth curves wider, as if he’s gaining traction on his pleasure from
the sound of Shizuo’s voice. “My apologies,” he drawls, his smile still
clinging to his lips to strip away any threat of sincerity from the purr of his
voice. “Please forgive me, Shizuo-senpai.”
Shizuo doesn’t know what face he makes. It’s a cringe, he thinks, reflexive
retreat from the sound of that title layered over with so much mockery under
it; but there’s a shudder of happiness, too, some deep-down appreciation that
he can’t shake before it settles into his veins like it’s locking itself into
his memories. The other boy’s hand is still clasped tight around his, fragile
fingers weighting to pain against the bruises Shizuo has collected during the
fight he can barely remember, but he doesn’t feel the hurt, not clearly. It
falls in line with the weird heat humming up his spine, sparking to fire in his
thoughts even as rationality fights for traction to insist that this is a joke,
that he’s being teased, that he can’t react to the barely-veiled mockery in the
other’s voice the way he might to a more sincere tone. It doesn’t matter; in
the end he can’t resist the warmth that prickles up his spine, can’t fight off
the burden of implied responsibility the sweeter for its source.
Shizuo’s never been called senpai before.
***** Normal *****
“Was it a gang?”
Shizuo looks up from the bathroom sink where water just this side of painfully
warm is running across the bloodstained bruises over his knuckles. Kasuka’s
leaning in the doorway, his gaze meeting Shizuo’s in the mirror without any of
the bright interest that might characterize someone else’s attention. But
Shizuo knows his brother, and he knows this is about as interested as Kasuka
ever appears to be in anything, so he just sighs and looks back down so he can
scrub the dirt out of the aching scratches in his skin.
“Dunno,” he admits, watching the water rinse the blood and grime off his
knuckles to leave the torn edges of his skin clean but for the faint trickle of
red they offer as half-formed scabs come loose under his efforts. “Probably.
They weren’t wearing the school uniform at least.”
“They could have been high schoolers,” Kasuka suggests.
Shizuo shrugs, a jerky motion of one shoulder that brushes aside the suggestion
more than capitulating to it. “Maybe,” he says, and rubs soap hard over
already-clean skin until he can feel the hurt of it aching all the way up his
wrist. “It doesn’t make a difference. They just wanted to pick a fight, I don’t
care who they were.”
Kasuka makes a generic sound from the doorway, an acknowledgement without any
implied interest in the subject. Shizuo lets the water run clean over his left
hand again, waiting until his fingers have stopped aching to turn his attention
to the bruises and blood rising over the knuckles of his right. There’s a
pause, a stretch of seconds while he rubs to dislodge dirt and blood alike;
when he speaks it’s low, without lifting his head to see if Kasuka is still
watching from the doorway. “I met someone today.”
“Oh?” Kasuka only barely manages to bring the word around into a question; it
sounds more like a statement, like he’s agreeing with Shizuo’s statement of
fact.
Shizuo keeps staring at his hands. “Yeah.” The skin across one of his knuckles
is still intact, with just the deep color of a bruise rising to the surface to
tell of the impact it made against the face of one of Shizuo’s attackers. He
fits his thumb against the color, pushes until he can feel the ache shudder
not-quite-unpleasantly along his spine. “The first-year I talked to on Monday.”
He lets the bruise go, feels the relief of the removed pressure run under his
skin before he reaches to shut off the water and shake his hands partially dry.
“He saw me fighting and came up to talk to me after.”
“Oh,” Kasuka says.
“He said he wants to join a club with me,” Shizuo says as he closes his hands
on the towel hanging next to the sink so he can dry his hands. “That’s weird,
right?” It’s more rhetorical than a true question; he’s frowning at the towel,
not even looking up to meet Kasuka’s flat stare. “I already asked him before
and he said no.” The towel drags across his knuckles, aching pain up his spine
and pressure against the back of his head; Shizuo can see his fingers
tightening on the fabric, can feel his expression going tense on frustrated
confusion. “That was before he knew who I was, why would he change his mind
after he saw me fighting? He should have been scared of me.” His fingers
tighten harder, dig so hard against the towel Shizuo can feel the texture
printing against his skin; then he lets it go, watching the torn skin at his
knuckles slowly go red with blood again. “Everyone is scared of me.”
“Maybe he wasn’t.”
It’s a simple statement. Kasuka delivers it with the same absolute calm he
gives to everything, whether it’s discussing what’s for dinner or whether
Shizuo is going to be expelled from elementary school for destroying half the
playground equipment, and it has the same resonance of complete plausibility
that everything he says collects from the everpresent disinterest in his tone.
It helps that Shizuo has come to the same conclusion, that all his rehashed
memories haven’t been able to find the least trace of fear in the blood-red
color of the first-year’s eyes fixed on him. Interest, yes, a sort of intent
focus that reminds him vaguely of that that he sees sometimes in Shinra’s face
when the other boy is talking about injuries or the poor descriptions he gives
of the woman he insists he’s in love with; but no fear, not even a moment of
instinctive flinching when Shizuo frowned at him. It doesn’t make sense, even
if it’s the only explanation Shizuo can come up with, and it leaves him
frowning at the towel in his hands and reaching for a sufficiently reasonable
retort as Kasuka straightens from the doorway.
“I’m going to get a snack before dinner,” Kasuka announces, and then he’s gone,
moving away from the bathroom and leaving Shizuo to wipe at the slow ooze of
blood spreading across his knuckles before he goes looking for the antiseptic
ointment. It stings across his injured skin, aching pain up along his spine
with a dull hurt that is so familiar Shizuo barely even feels it anymore, and
then he leaves his skin to scab without the assistance of a bandage and turns
his attention to the cut that has left a path of dried blood along the edge of
his hairline. It’s stopped bleeding long since, the trickle of red from it has
dried and flakes away as Shizuo rubs at it; it leaves his skin clear, at least
of that particular indication of fighting, though the swelling against his
lower lip is still there, still shifting the flat line of his mouth lopsided in
his reflection. Shizuo stares at it for a moment, considering the asymmetry
violence has left on his expression; it’s familiar damage, it will heal as well
as it ever does, likely leaving him without even a scar to show for the injury.
But he’s not really looking at his reflection, not really seeing his own face;
he’s thinking about the cut of the first-year’s voice from over his shoulder as
he moved away down the hallway, hearing the laugh of manic amusement clinging
close to the other’s words as he trailed Shizuo like a shadow after the
conclusion of the fight.I’ve never met a monster before,  Izaya had said, his
voice as raw on sincerity as Shizuo’s knuckles are on the effects of his own
strength, and Shizuo knows what the other students call him, knows what even
his teachers sometimes whisper when they think he can’t hear; but he’s never
heard it to his face, never before seen the shift of someone else’s mouth as
they tag him with the label they’ve decided he deserves, as they settle him
into a box of their own making with walls too strong for even he to ever break
free from. Shizuo had hissed, had snapped some half-formed denial to ward off
the burden of that title; but there was a relief to hearing it, a satisfaction
just to finally being able to offer a response to the attack even if his answer
did nothing to clear the amused interest in the other boy’s face. Izaya had
laughed at him, had smirked some coy advice about knowing yourself, and when
Shizuo had asked him outright the same question he asked Kasuka Izaya’s answer
had been as simple: I’m not scared ofanything, with his smile so wide and eyes
so fever-bright believing him seemed like the only rational response.
Shizuo frowns at his reflection in the mirror. The motion draws the swollen
corner of his mouth down sharply, tenses the slant of his mouth into pain he
can feel like an echo of the hurt lingering across his knuckles, but it hides
the worst of the bruising, too, granting his expression the illusion of health
until a stranger wouldn’t see anything unusual at all.
He wishes he could make the rest of his existence normal as easily.
***** Character *****
“Why do you want to join a club anyway?” Izaya asks from the other side of the
classroom desk. He has his shoulders hunched in over the club request form laid
out between them after claiming it from Shizuo’s unresisting hold; he sounds
almost bored even as he asks the question and doesn’t look up to meet Shizuo’s
gaze as he puts words to the inquiry. His hair is very dark over his face;
Shizuo can’t see the other’s eyes at all for the curtain his hair makes. His
own scowl is going as unobserved as Izaya’s eyes are; the other boy hasn’t
looked up from the club form even at Shizuo’s attempts to see what he’s filling
out in the spaces on the sheet. Izaya keeps talking, still in that same barely-
interested tone like he’s listening to the sound of his own voice more than
really expecting Shizuo to respond. “Don’t you want to go home after school?
You could always wreck havoc in the streets, if your family is so bad.”
Shizuo frowns harder at Izaya’s head, the expression weighting his mouth even
though he knows it will go unseen by the other. “My family is fine,” he says,
thinking of Kasuka’s steady calm, of his mother’s ready smile, of the casual
affection of his father’s infrequent presence on his rare days off. “I just
need something to do so I don’t get caught up in fights on my way home.”
There’s a crackle of sound, a drag of laughter in Izaya’s throat, and his chin
comes up enough for him to meet Shizuo’s gaze from under the shadow of his
hair. His mouth is caught on a smile, the edge of it tugging into a smirk that
flashes the white edges of his teeth like an unspoken threat and tenses
instinctive aggression along the length of Shizuo’s spine. “Are you trying to
convince me you’re scared?”
Shizuo can feel his shoulders hunch, can feel the irritation under his skin
forming itself into the hard edge of defensiveness that is a mere breath away
from truly losing his temper. “I’m not scared,” he growls, letting the rough
edge on the back of the word wear off the rawest edge of his frustration as it
goes. Izaya’s still leaning in over the desk, still watching him with a weird
reckless light behind his eyes; Shizuo tightens his fingers against his palms,
digging his fingernails in hard against the skin in an attempt to hold back the
frustration trying to break free of his too-fragile control. “I just don’t like
it.”
Izaya raises an eyebrow to match the lopsided drag of his mouth. “You don’t
like winning?” It’s almost a laugh, even the sound of his voice shaping itself
to amusement like he’s saying something ridiculous, like he’s making fun of
Shizuo just with the words he’s attributing to the other boy.
“I don’t like fighting,” Shizuo snaps, and something in his chest eases just
with the admission, as if putting words to the fact has sapped the edge of his
rising frustration and let it simmer back to calm in his veins. His fingers
ease at his palms, the ache of the pressure at his skin fading as he lets his
grip go and looks away from the taunt of Izaya’s expression and out towards the
window instead. The setting sun makes his eyes ache and sparkles painfully
bright in his vision, but he just blinks into it, letting the distraction of
the light burn away the last tension of violence in his body. When he speaks
again it’s to the sun more than to Izaya, the words framed more for his own
benefit than because he’s really paying attention to his audience. “I hate
violence.”
It’s a simple admission. Shizuo has said it before, to Kasuka, to his mother,
to anyone who will listen, as if making it his personal motto will somehow make
people more willing to believe him. He’s expecting laughter, expecting
disbelief; it’s what he usually gets, after all, and Izaya seems willing to
laugh at anything and for far less motivation than this. So he’s not surprised
when the other boy huffs amusement, when he declares “You’re absurd,” with more
purring laughter on the sound than Shizuo has yet heard from him. Shizuo frowns
into the sunlight, setting himself against another flood of irritation, and
when he looks back Izaya’s still watching him, his mouth still fixed on that
smile that doesn’t touch the shadows behind his eyes. There’s a moment of
silence as Shizuo stares at Izaya watching him; then Izaya ducks his head to
look back down at the club form as he goes on speaking.
“You have inhuman strength and all you say is that you hate violence?” He’s
still smiling, Shizuo can see the flicker of his smirk even as bends over the
club form, would be able to hear the expression under the other’s tone even
without the visual confirmation. “You practically are violence.”
It’s meant as a taunt. Shizuo can hear the laugh under the words, can hear the
drag of mockery over Izaya’s tongue as he makes the claim. But Izaya might as
well be speaking with Shizuo’s own voice for how accurate the words are, for
how easily they fall in line with thoughts he’s turned away from every chance
he gets just for his own self-preservation. It’s too much to dodge right now,
would require more mental control than Shizuo has to avoid the thought, and for
a moment all he can do is cringe and turn away to aim his scowl at the desk in
front of him as all his skin prickles hot with shame printed into him along
with the shattered bones and torn skin he’s earned from too many fights with
too many victims. The burn under his skin isn’t anger anymore, or at least not
the kind that makes him throw desks and twist metal; this is the sour kind, the
kind that turns in on itself as if he could undo his own strength, as if he
could pick apart his own too-quick temper if he only hated it viciously enough.
He stares at the desk instead of trying to meet Izaya’s gaze, his inner
monologue vicious enough to drown out even the singsongy lilt of Izaya’s voice,
until when the other boy says “Here” loud enough to catch Shizuo’s attention
Shizuo isn’t sure if it’s the first or the fifth time the other has spoken. He
lifts his head, his attention pulling up out of its self-destructive spiral and
into startled focus, and there’s movement over the desk, Izaya shoving the club
registration form across the distance at Shizuo while the other is still
blinking startled attention. “Congratulations, you have yourself a club.”
Shizuo lifts a hand to catch the edge of the paper as it slips towards the lip
of the desk, and then he’s blinking down at the clean white of the sheet as
Izaya leans in and weights him with the anticipation of his gaze.
It’s easy to read. Izaya’s handwriting is neat enough, clean and pristine like
typeface if with odd almost-flourishes at the end of words like his sense of
identity is forcing itself free of the bounds of the text. Shizuo skims over
the first part of the form, the pre-printed header and their last names in
alphabetical order one over the other; that’s ordinary, expected,
uninteresting. What is interesting is the field for Title, the blank space for
Purpose that he so struggled over.
“Humanity Studies,” he says aloud, forming the shape of Izaya’s handwriting
into sound without thinking over the action before he does it. The name doesn’t
carry any meaning on its own; it lacks the epiphany Shizuo had been braced for.
He frowns at the meaningless title before he skips down to the next box and the
extra lines of text inside it. “Formed for the purposes of defining the
boundaries of humanity and the…”
Phenomena that fall outside it, the form continues, with such a sharp edge to
the lettering that Shizuo can almost hear the words in Izaya’s tone, can nearly
taste the cut of the unvoiced laugh under each phrase. Intended to determine
the limit of the human form and explore those instances of behavior
inexplicable by normal biological functions.
There’s an impact against Shizuo’s shin, the weight of a foot kicking against
his leg. When he lifts his head Izaya is grinning at him from the other side of
the table, his head canted far to the side so his hair casts shadows across his
face. “Doesn’t it sound like fun, Shizuo-senpai?” he wants to know, his lips
curving on a grin that is as much taunt as it is amusement. “Don’t I have the
best ideas?”
Shizuo frowns hard at Izaya. Usually this particular expression is enough to
win him a flicker of fright, a moment of tension across someone else’s face or
a hunch to their shoulders. Izaya doesn’t so much as bat his eyelashes. “You
want to make a club to study me.”
Izaya leans in over the desk, his elbow landing hard against the surface.
“Sure.” He catches his chin against his palm, bares his teeth in a sudden
lopsided smile that doesn’t touch the shadows in his eyes. Shizuo blinks at the
uncanny juxtaposition of the other’s expression. “You didn’t have any bright
ideas. And I think humanity is fascinating.”
There’s something about the way he drawls over the last word that makes it
sound condescending, that frames his interest into the far-off amusement of a
god watching half-sentient toys, or perhaps more accurately of a child watching
an ant farm. It makes Shizuo’s frown turn to concern, prickles some premonition
of worry up along his spine as he considers the untouched shadows behind the
other’s almost scarlet eyes. He stares at Izaya for a moment, looking for some
self-consciousness in the other’s gaze, seeking some kind of crack in his
facade; but there’s nothing, Izaya’s expression might as well be the sheer
silver of a mirror for all the give he offers under Shizuo’s consideration.
“You’re crazy,” Shizuo finally says, feeling the truth of the words like awe on
his tongue. Izaya’s eyelashes flutter, the dark of them dipping over the color
of his eyes at this claim, but his mouth doesn’t ease out of his amused smirk,
his expression doesn’t crack under the blow of Shizuo’s statement. “You’re out
of your mind.”
Izaya huffs a laugh, his voice skidding high and sun-bright for just a moment.
When he reaches across the table for the club form Shizuo doesn’t resist his
pull, just lets the other ease the sheet of paper out of his hold and turn it
around towards himself again.
“And you’re in the Humanity Club with me,” Izaya declares, ducking his head to
consider the form again as if he weren’t filling out the boxes in front of him
not minutes before. “What does that make you, senpai?”
A monster. The words are quick on Shizuo’s tongue, his self-determination
flickering reflexively into being before he can catch it back; for a moment the
sound presses against his lips, weighting the back of his tongue until he has
to close his mouth and swallow hard to fight back the burden of the sound into
silence again.
“An idiot,” he says instead, finally, when he can trust his voice to work
correctly and while Izaya is still bent in over the completed club form. “Are
you actually going to turn that in like that?”
“Sure,” Izaya says. He’s dragging his pen across the bottom of the form,
fitting the shape of his name into the space thus indicated for it at the base
of the page. “Why, do you suddenly have a better idea?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Shizuo protests, still fixing the top of Izaya’s head
with his scowl since the other won’t lift his gaze to meet Shizuo’s. “This is a
stupid goal for a club, they can’t possibly approve this.”
“I don’t think they care,” Izaya informs him. He lifts his head and braces his
fingers against the club sheet to pass it across the desk to Shizuo. “Don’t you
think the administration will be glad to get you under better control than you
are now?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo says, which is a weak comeback but the best he can manage as
his attention drops to the form in front of him. All the blanks but one are
filled out; the only space left is under Club Members alongside the outline of
Izaya’s own name. Shizuo’s attention catches against the combination of
characters, his forehead creasing as he considers the dark lines. “Are your
parents the inventive type?”
Izaya’s laugh is crystalline, brittle at the edges and sparkling so Shizuo
doesn’t even have to look up to hear the smirk around the other’s voice. “When
it comes to their children’s names, at least. Do you have a problem with it,
senpai?”
“No,” Shizuo says, and reaches for his own pen to fill in the shape of his name
on the line next to Izaya’s. “It’s fine.” The ink soaks into the page, marking
out the characters of his name indelibly on the form; Shizuo sets the pen aside
as he finishes, reaching to touch his fingers to the paper just under the odd
characters of Izaya’s name and the familiar shape of his own.
“It’s official,” Izaya declares from the other side of the desk. “Or it will
be, as soon as I turn it in.” He reaches across the gap between them, catching
the edge of the form and tugging it free of Shizuo’s hold. “You could look a
little happier. Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”
“I didn’t want to be in a club so I could be researched,” Shizuo protests,
looking up to meet Izaya’s lingering smirk with the weight of a glare, but it’s
a weak expression, and he only manages to hold it for a moment before he’s
looking back down to the ink on the page and the names one alongside each
other, Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo in matched black ink on either side
of the form.
Their names look better together than Shizuo expected they would.
***** Flinch *****
Shizuo doesn’t hear Izaya coming.
It’s not entirely his fault. He’s distracted, caught up in the heart-pounding
rush of a fistfight with one of the first-year delinquents too reckless or too
stupid to refuse when his friends told him to pick a fight with Heiwajima
Shizuo; the fight is over quickly, ending almost as soon as it starts with a
pair of punches that leave Shizuo’s attacker on the ground and so still Shizuo
is sure he’s either unconscious or doing a fantastic job of pretending to be.
It doesn’t make a difference whether he’s feigning or not; even if he gets to
his feet as soon as Shizuo turns his back, the raw viciousness in Shizuo’s
blood says he can take it, purrs that if that’s the case the other boy deserves
whatever Shizuo does to him, that if he’s willing to attack without warning he
must be ready to accept reciprocation in equal measure. So Shizuo is letting
the adrenaline in his veins go, and shaking out the strain of violence from his
shoulder and wrist, and then there’s the weight of a footstep just behind him
and he’s turning too fast to think. His fingers curl as he moves, his arm lifts
itself into angle for a punch; and there’s movement, hands coming up in a sign
of defenselessness that Shizuo parses just as he starts to swing. It’s hard to
stop the forward motion of his arm, requiring a second of processing time that
lets his hand cross almost the whole distance to Izaya’s face, and it’s only at
the last moment that Shizuo is able to stall the action unfinished with his
knuckles scant inches from shattering the high arch of Izaya’s cheekbone under
their impact.
“Easy there, senpai,” Izaya says, his voice remarkably steady as he holds
Shizuo’s gaze. Shizuo doesn’t think he even blinked, didn’t see him so much as
brace for the impact. “It’s just your cute kouhai.”
“Fuck,” Shizuo gasps, delayed-reaction panic chilling all the fire from his
veins as he snatches his hand back, as he unfolds his fist to shake all the
tension free of his fingers. “Don’t do that, Izaya-kun.”
“Which part?” Izaya asks, but he’s not waiting for the answer; he’s leaning
sideways to blink attention at the still form behind Shizuo. “Initiating
communication or startling you?”
“Both,” Shizuo growls, trying to condense his horrified chill at what he could
have done into an understandable expression, but Izaya isn’t even looking at
him anymore; he’s stepping sideways, moving around the wall of Shizuo’s body as
if the other isn’t even there. Shizuo has to turn to track him, to hold the
weight of his glare against Izaya’s skinny shoulders, and it goes unnoticed
anyway; Izaya’s focus is caught by the delinquent still on the ground as he
approaches close enough to peer at the other’s face. “I could have killed you.”
Izaya does look back at that, flashing Shizuo a grin that sparkles dark in his
eyes. “You shouldn’t exaggerate, senpai,” he informs the other. “At worst you
would have put me in the hospital for a day or two. That’s hardly on a level
with death, is it?” He looks away and back to Shizuo’s erstwhile attacker; when
he swings his foot out it’s to toe the other boy in the ribs hard enough to
rock him to the side. “Unless you have a very different definition of murder
than the commonly accepted one.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo says, because that’s easier than wrapping coherency to the
panic in his veins, easier than finding voice for his lingering horror at
nearly destroying the tentative almost of whatever their relationship is with
an unthinking swing of his hand. When his fingers curl at his side it’s not
from anger, or at least not any that would find Izaya as its target. “I could
have hurt you.”
“Like you hurt him?” Izaya asks. His eyes are dark when he looks back; Shizuo
can see them catch the light for a moment, can see them flicker for a heartbeat
before Izaya dips his chin to drop them back into shadow. “Other people aren’t
allowed to startle you or start conversation, apparently. Did he have the nerve
to actually ask you a question to earn this kind of retribution?”
“Stop it,” Shizuo growls. “He started the fight in the first place.”
“Oh?” Izaya hasn’t looked back to the other boy; he’s still watching Shizuo,
still has his mouth quirked up on the shadow of an unvoiced laugh. “He must
have been an idiot, then.”
Shizuo frowns. “To start a fight with me?”
“To not have an escape plan if he lost.” Izaya turns his back on the other boy
completely, moving forward to step past Shizuo again; he looks relaxed,
completely calm as he moves even though Shizuo’s hands are still balled into
fists at his sides, even though Shizuo’s rising frustration with the situation
in general if not Izaya in specific is dragging his expression into a grimace
that would be a warning to anyone else. It’s not that Izaya’s not seeing him;
he keeps watching Shizuo as he moves, his gaze following the other’s face as he
steps past him well within range of a punch like he’s making his continued eye
contact a dare for a blow. He’s all but asking for it, Shizuo can see the drag
of laughter at his lips like he’s looking forward to the combat, but there’s no
heat in Shizuo’s veins, nothing but that cold chill of fear for what could have
been, what he might have done if he were a heartbeat slower in catching back
the swing of his hand. Izaya moves all the way past him, back to his initial
position; when he turns it’s to pivot on his heel, to grind his footprint into
the dirt under him like he’s staking a claim on the location. “If I picked a
fight with you I would have the good sense to know how I was going to get away
first.”
Shizuo huffs a humorless laugh. “That’s not why they want to fight me.” He lets
his hands uncurl with a conscious effort of will, feeling every tendon in his
fingers and wrists ease individually until his hands hang slack and heavy at
his sides. He can feel the bruises rising over his knuckles, can feel the dull
throb of torn skin across two of the fingers on his right hand.
“Why do they want to fight you?” Izaya asks. Shizuo lifts his head, his
attention skipping up to the other’s face from his introspective consideration
of the ache across his hand; Izaya is watching him, his eyes still as dark as
the shadow of his hair and his mouth still quirked on that smile that hasn’t
flickered in the entire time since Shizuo turned to mistake him for another
attacker. His head tips to the side, his grin stretches wider; in the shadow of
his hair his teeth seem very white. “To prove to themselves they’re stronger
than a monster?”
“I don’t know,” Shizuo admits. “Probably.”
“Hm,” Izaya hums. “That’s silly.” He takes a step backwards without looking,
without lifting his head from its considering angle. “They should at least have
a good reason before they go around picking a fight like that.”
“A good reason,” Shizuo repeats. “Like what?”
Izaya’s laugh is as bright as bells, as sharp as a knife edge. “Like having
fun,” he says. “Don’t you have fun when you’re fighting, senpai?”
Shizuo can’t find words to respond to that. He growls instead, letting the low
rumble of sound in his throat speak for him, and Izaya just laughs again and
shakes his hair back from his face so the sunlight can touch the dark of his
eyes.
Even when Shizuo takes a step closer, Izaya doesn’t flinch any more than he did
for the first stalled-out blow.
***** Light *****
Shizuo is starting to worry about how much time he spends following Izaya
around.
It’s not on purpose. It’s not like he’s making it his life’s goal to become the
other boy’s shadow, not as if he’s trying to find out everything Izaya does in
his free time; Shizuo suspects he’d rather not know, if he had a say in the
matter. It’s just that more and more often Izaya is there whenever Shizuo turns
around, smirking from the fringes of a fight or perched on the edge of a wall
and purring some suggestion that Shizuo doesn’t think to protest until it’s too
late. He doesn’t mean to fall into line with everything Izaya says they should
do; it’s just that Izaya speaks with so much certainty, says “Come on, senpai”
with such absolute force behind the words that Shizuo is following him before
he has a chance to think. Today Izaya was waiting for Shizuo when he got out of
class, leaning against the far wall of the hallway and smiling that weird dark
smile that never makes it to meet the laughter in his eyes, and when he moved
Shizuo turned to trail him, not able to even form the words of a question until
Izaya was opening the door to an unused classroom and leading the way into the
empty space.
“What are you doing?” Shizuo asks from the doorway, hesitating with his feet
still on the other side of the threshold. “Are we allowed to be in here?”
“No one else is using it,” Izaya tells him airily. He’s halfway across the room
by now, navigating the array of desks with a strange skipping pace, as if he’s
making a game of cutting around the corners of the furniture without slowing
his forward movement. “Do you really think the school is going to care more
about us using an empty classroom than they do about you beating up every gang
in the city with school property?”
“I don’t beat up gangs,” Shizuo says, but it’s a weak protest and he knows it
himself. Izaya doesn’t even bother retorting; he just glances back over his
shoulder, raising an eyebrow and curling his mouth around the beginning of a
skeptical laugh before he turns back to the windows on the far side of the
room. Shizuo hunches his shoulders in, feeling the familiar discomfort of self-
consciousness settling in along his spine and knotting in his too-strong
muscles; he leaves Izaya to fiddle with the latch and work the window open
while he turns down one of the aisles between the desks and paces idly out to
the end of the row. His own seat in his class is near the back of the room, a
row away from the distraction of the window but far enough from the front that
he could be forgotten if he weren’t such a constant topic of attention. He
finds the matching seat in this room, presses his fingers against the
unfamiliar surface of the desk as Izaya shoves the window open with a whine
from the rarely-used frame; the texture is a little different, lacking some of
the scratches Shizuo has become familiar with over the first few weeks of
class, but when he looks back up to the front of the room the angle of the
perspective is familiar even with the eerie emptiness of the room, the position
similar enough that he feels a little like he’s stepped into an alternate
reality almost but not quite the same as his own. It’s a strange comfort, as
much unsettling as reassuring, but Shizuo pulls the chair back anyway and drops
to sit at the desk as much like his own as something other than his desk can be
before leaning into the same tense hunch he usually adopts in his own
classroom. It’s strange to have the room empty around him, odd to be absent the
stares he’s so used to; when he looks up even Izaya is looking elsewhere,
tipping himself far forward out the open window so the breeze outside catches
against the dark of his hair.
“You haven’t answered me,” Shizuo says, reclaiming some traction on his typical
frustration as he watches Izaya lean farther out the window than he should.
“What are we doing?”
“I told you at lunch.” Izaya braces his hand against the edge of the windowsill
as he pulls himself back up and into the classroom, swinging on his heel and
turning to lean against the sill instead of leaning out past it. His teeth are
very white when he grins at Shizuo, forming that odd cut of a smile that looks
as much like a threat as it does amusement. “If we’re going to be in a club
together we need to have club activities to report on.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes and lets his weight fall back against the support of the
chair behind him. If he kicks out against the front of the desk he can tip
himself backwards, can rock off the front legs of the chair to balance against
the back pair. “It doesn’t matter. No one really cares what the clubs do as
long as you’re part of one.”
“Are you a slacker, senpai?” Izaya’s voice is cutting, sing-songy on laughter
but sharp as a knife underneath the perpetual strain of mockery on his tongue.
When Shizuo looks back at him Izaya’s watching the shift of the chair legs
under the other, his eyes dark in the shadow of his lashes. “How am I supposed
to become a productive member of society if all I have is your example to
follow?”
Shizuo frowns at the other boy. “Aren’t you supposed to respect me?”
Izaya’s gaze skips up from the chair to Shizuo’s face, his smile cracking wider
over his expression. “I do,” he purrs, insincerity syrup-sweet on his tongue as
he pushes himself up onto the windowsill and kicks his feet out in front of
him, turning his head to watch the swing of his legs instead of Shizuo’s face.
“Do you think I don’t?”
“I think you’re a brat,” Shizuo says with aggressive honesty. He doesn’t look
away from the curve of the smile still holding to Izaya’s lips. “I should never
have started a club with you.”
Izaya’s mouth twitches, his head tips back. “Feel free to leave as soon as you
find someone else willing to spend time with you.” He leans backwards out the
window, letting his shoulders tilt out into the open space behind him. “You’ve
done an impressive job of terrifying everyone else.”
Shizuo can feel irritation rising in his chest, can feel the pressure of
frustration weighting against the inside of his ribcage. “Shut up,” he orders.
“Are you trying to make me hate you?”
Izaya tips his chin down enough to grant Shizuo his attention again. His mouth
curves upwards sharply, fitting around the shape of a grin as hot as an open
flame. “I don’t care if you hate me,” he says, sounding as easy and offhand as
if he really means the words, as if the goodwill of other students is something
trivial and unimportant instead of the only thing Shizuo has ever really
wanted. “Let’s take over the school.”
Shizuo’s laugh is startled out of him as much by the casual absurdity of the
statement as by the non-sequitur of Izaya’s subject change. His mouth curves on
an unwilling smile, some of the anger in his veins easing into the warmth of
amusement before he has a chance to decide if he wants it to or not. “I wish I
could tell when you’re serious.”
Izaya’s smile is a dare. “I’m always serious,” he says, and Shizuo knows that
for a lie without looking, doesn’t need to hear the laughter under Izaya’s
voice or see the shadow behind his eyes to know it for such. He keeps looking
anyway, even though Izaya is watching his own feet instead of meeting Shizuo’s
gaze; he’s swinging his legs out in front of him, tipping his shoulders back to
lean far out the window and into the open air behind him as he goes on speaking
with easy inattention. “We could do it, you know. You have the raw strength and
I’ve got the brains. It would be fun." His head tips back, his balance wobbles
precariously against the sill; Shizuo can see the strain in Izaya’s arms, can
see the reflexive swing of the other’s feet as he tries to maintain his
position against the very edge of the window. They’re a few floors up, Shizuo
knows without looking; the nearest thing on the other side of the sill is the
pavement three stories below, far enough away that a fall would be more
dangerous than facing down Shizuo himself in a fistfight.
“Stop it,” Shizuo says, feeling tension knot into the shape of worry in his
chest as he watches Izaya teeter against the ledge. “You’re going to fall.”
Izaya turns his head to meet Shizuo’s glare, his eyes catching the sunlight to
lighten to the odd blood-red color they sometimes take on with the right
illumination. His smile goes wider, forming the shape of laughter at his mouth;
but then he brings his feet in towards the wall as ordered, even going so far
as to fit his toes under the railing running against the edge of the classroom
as if to lock himself in place.
“Is that a no?” he wants to know, ducking his head as he leans in from his
precarious tilt out the window and eases the white-knuckled grip he had on the
sill as he keeps watching Shizuo from under the dark shadow of his hair. “Or is
the school by itself not enough for you?” His whole expression looks darker now
than it did, with the angle of his shoulders blocking the sunlight from
sweeping over the sharp angles of his face.
“Maybe the city,” Izaya says, and then he leans backwards and out the open
window into the empty space behind him.
Shizuo has never moved so fast in his life. There’s a shout in his throat, a
blurt of “Fuck” as loud as sudden panic can make it, but it’s not coherency of
speech taking control of him; it’s adrenaline instead, surging him to his feet
and sending him lunging forward without any consideration for the desk still in
front of him or the way the legs of his fallen chair rattle to leave bruises
against his shins as he kicks it aside. Izaya’s tipping out the window, the
angle of his shoulders dipping well beyond the point of saving himself, and
Shizuo’s entire body has seized tight on sudden panic; he’s sure even the
beating of his heart has stalled out in the first terrified rush of horror. The
gap between them is narrowing, Izaya’s still at the edge of the window but any
moment he’s going to fall off in the other direction, he’s going to tumble off
the edge and Shizuo is going to miss -- and Shizuo reaches, and touches fabric,
and his fingers twist to make a fist of the front of Izaya’s coat just as he
throws his other hand out to catch and stop his own forward momentum against
the glass of the open window.
“We could take everything,” Izaya is saying, as calmly as if he doesn’t realize
he’s hanging from Shizuo’s grip on his shirtfront, as if he didn’t even notice
Shizuo’s precipitous rush across the classroom to stop his fall. He has his
head tipped back to stare out into the clear sky, isn’t even looking up at
Shizuo; from this angle Shizuo can see the rhythm of Izaya’s heartbeat
thrumming just against the line of his throat. “You and me.”
“What the fuck,” Shizuo manages. His heart is pounding doubletime in his chest
as if to make up for those few moments of raw panic too all-encompassing to
even allow for such basic instincts as breathing. He can feel his fingers
cramping against Izaya’s shirt, like he’s afraid his grip is likely to give way
unless he can actually meld his body to the other’s clothing. “The hell is
wrong with you?” His voice is shaking, he can feel it thrumming over the strain
of terror in his chest; if he looks away from Izaya’s face he can see the
pavement below, can imagine too clearly the damage such a fall would do even to
his own abnormal frame.
Izaya looks back at him. His gaze is steady, his expression calm; Shizuo
wonders dizzily if it’s a show, if it’s just an act the other is putting on to
tease him, or if Izaya really has so little self-preservation that he’s not
even afraid at throwing himself out an open window on the assumption that
Shizuo will catch him. His lashes flutter, his mouth twists; but when he speaks
there’s no laughter on the sound at all.
“I wasn’t going to fall.” He shifts his feet, unhooking them from the railing
where they’ve been caught; Shizuo hadn’t even noticed the extra support they
offered for his own desperate grip. Izaya’s lips drag at the corner as he kicks
his feet up and out; for a moment Shizuo can feel the other’s balance veer out
over the edge of the windowsill, can feel the weight of Izaya’s body entirely
hanging from his hold. “I’m not crazy.”
“Come here,” Shizuo demands, his voice still raw in a range he didn’t know he
could hit, and he drags hard at Izaya’s shirtfront. With the radiance of
adrenaline surging through him it takes no effort at all to lift Izaya out of
the window by main force and drag him bodily back into the room. For a moment
Izaya’s feet are off the ground, his whole body supported by Shizuo’s grip on
his shirt; then Shizuo lets him go to push him hard into the safety of the
classroom, to keep the other as far from the window as possible while he turns
to slam it shut with such force the frame creaks at the impact.
“You’ll kill yourself with stunts like that,” Shizuo says against the comfort
of the closed window, framing the fear under his voice to justified anger
before he turns to face the other again. Izaya’s smiling at him, the way Shizuo
knew he would be, his mouth curving on an unvoiced laugh and his eyes sparkling
with secrets Shizuo isn’t invited to share. He looks unflustered, calm and
glowing with amusement; it’s Shizuo who’s shaking with the aftershocks of
adrenaline, Shizuo who can’t ease the tension in the fingers still tight in a
fist against his side.
It’s terrifying to realize how light Izaya’s life felt in his hold.
***** Responsible *****
Izaya’s not waiting when Shizuo gets out of class for lunch.
This isn’t that much of a surprise. After that first day at the back of the
school Izaya’s consistently appeared at some point during Shizuo’s lunch break,
but he’s only actually waiting once or a week or so; the rest of the time he’ll
let himself onto the school roof five minutes after Shizuo arrives, or ten
minutes before the end of the break, or be waiting there already when Shizuo
shows up, leaning out over the fence encircling the top edge of the roof with
that casual disregard for gravity that always makes Shizuo’s chest tighten on
secondhand panic on the other’s behalf. The thought makes Shizuo frown at the
empty hallway, now, scowling at the empty wall across from his classroom door
as if sufficient irritation will make Izaya materialize out of clear space; but
of course it doesn’t, and Shizuo is left to maneuver the crowd of other
students as he makes his way to the stairs leading to the rooftop alone. He
pauses along the way, stopping for a drink of water at one of the fountains in
the hallway, and maybe it’s deliberately to prove to himself that he’s not in a
hurry but it doesn’t make a difference when he doesn’t have an audience to call
him out on his reasons. He takes longer than he needs to, wandering along the
long route back to the stairway to the roof and wondering in an idle,
hypothetical way what Izaya would do if Shizuo didn’t show up for lunch one
day. The other boy seems content enough to appear whenever and wherever is most
convenient for him; Shizuo wonders if Izaya would wait for him if their
positions were reversed, if it was Izaya with the predictable routine and
Shizuo who was the flighty one. He’s not sure, even in the comfortable span of
his own imagination; after all, he’s the one who doesn’t fit in, he’s the one
carrying the weight of his monstrous strength on his shoulders along with the
fit of his school uniform. Shizuo can’t even figure out why Izaya has taken
such an intense interest in him; it reminds him vaguely of Shinra’s childhood
appreciation of Shizuo as a topic of study, but in spite of the statement
written on the application form for their club Izaya seems far less interested
in the physical details of Shizuo’s strength and far more invested in teasing,
in throwing taunts like daggers and laughing whenever he can get a reaction
from the other. The thought makes Shizuo grimace as he turns the corner to the
top of the stairs to the roof, hunches his shoulders on discomfort as he pushes
the door open, and then there’s a sharp bite of sound from the other side of
the roof, “Fuck you” skidding high and strained, and Shizuo looks up in
reflexive response to what sounds like a fight.
It’s not a fight, or at least not what he recognizes as the give-and-take of
those scuffles he’s seen from enough of a distance for him to maintain his own
calm. It looks like bullying from the distance of the door, one boy with a
fistful of another’s shirt as he shoves him back against the links of the
rooftop fence ,as the other lets himself be pushed without offering any
resistance at all. The second boy’s feet are off the ground, his stability
entirely abandoned to the grip of the other’s fist on his shirt, and then he
smiles, and Shizuo doesn’t need to hear the too-soft lilt of whatever he’s
saying to recognize the cutting edge of Izaya’s smirk.
Shizuo takes a step forward and lets the weight of the door slam shut behind
him. It sounds echoingly loud to his ears but neither of the two boys at the
fence even glance at him; he doesn’t think either of them heard the noise for
their focus on each other. The stranger is shoving Izaya against the fence,
tipping him back over the top edge of it, and Izaya isn’t trying to fight back
at all; he’s just smiling, his grin dragging wider the farther he goes, his
fingers catching to skim over the links of the fence more like he’s feeling out
the shape of them than trying to stop his upward motion. The other boy looks
frantic, his mouth trembling and eyes wide with incoherent adrenaline; it’s a
strange way to look when Izaya is offering him no more resistance than that
laugh at his mouth, but the cause for his tension is unimportant. What’s
important is that he’s still shoving Izaya back, that the set of his jaw says
the threat is sincere if not the intention, and Shizuo is scowling even before
he’s in range of a blow, growling “Hey” from the other side of the rooftop as
he strides forward over the space between him and the other two boys.
Izaya doesn’t turn his head. It’s the other boy who reacts, whose gaze veers
around to fix on Shizuo with flaring anger behind his eyes. He opens his mouth
to snarl something, to tell Shizuo to fuck off and leave them alone, Shizuo is
sure; and then his eyes flicker over the other’s face, and his expression falls
into slack horror, and he mouths the shape of Heiwajima on his lips with so
much breathless fright Shizuo can’t even hear the sound. His whole body is
collapsing in on itself, following some instinct to make himself look smaller,
less dangerous, nonthreatening, and ever before that’s been enough to prickle
horror down Shizuo’s spine, to make him flinch back into apologetic guilt for
the fear he’s caused. But Izaya’s only just landing back on his feet, is only
just steadying himself back on the ground, and for the first time in his life
Shizuo doesn’t feel anything but vicious satisfaction at the fear in the
stranger’s eyes. He’s curling his hand into a fist, starting to smile on the
rising tide of frustrated anger, and then: “Shizu-chan,” as whip-quick as an
order in a voice too familiar to ignore. Shizuo’s attention veers sideways,
skidding from the satisfaction of fury to the itch of irritation at the
nickname, but Izaya isn’t even looking at him; he’s staring at the other boy
instead, his mouth quirked up at the corner. “What are you doing here?”
“You know Heiwajima?” the stranger gasps, making Shizuo’s name sound like that
of a demon or a monster or a god, like something too far outside the bounds of
humanity to be viewed as another mortal existence. Shizuo glances at him again,
his fingers tensing against his palm; but Izaya just huffs a laugh, and when
Shizuo looks back Izaya’s wearing such a self-satisfied smile that it prickles
some self-preservation instinct down Shizuo’s spine in spite of his advantage
in strength and size on the other.
“I know everyone,” Izaya says, and “Fuck,” the stranger blurts, finally turning
away from the weight of Izaya’s stare to bolt for the doorway. He doesn’t look
at Shizuo again; he’s too busy moving away as fast as he can, sprinting for the
door as if he can avoid Shizuo’s attention if he just moves fast enough. Shizuo
scowls at the stranger’s hunched shoulders, feels his momentarily-forgotten
anger resettling itself along his spine, and when the other drags the door open
Shizuo takes a step back towards him, the adrenaline in his veins purring
promises of revenge and satisfaction to the back of his thoughts. He’s going to
break his nose, he thinks, he’ll drag him back up here bodily and hold him over
the edge of the rooftop fence and--
“It must be nice to feel like the hero.”
Shizuo’s attention veers sideways, his whole focus reorienting itself as he
turns as suddenly as if Izaya’s voice is a physical force to stall his momentum
and pivot him back around towards the other boy. Izaya’s still standing by the
fence, his shoulders relaxed and his gaze fixed on Shizuo; his mouth is still
clinging to the remnants of the smile he gave the stranger, his expression
still as unflustered as if he isn’t barely a minute away from an experience of
life-threatening danger. “Is it strange to see conflict from the other side,
Shizu-chan?”
Shizuo frowns. “Don’t call me that,” he says, but he’s distracted even as he
makes the demand; he’s still thinking about the grip of the other boy’s fist at
Izaya’s shirt, still seeing the unresisting curve of Izaya’s back as he let
himself be pushed up against the support of the fence. “What the hell was
that?”
Izaya glances sideways at the fence next to him, tips his head and lifts his
shoulder into a shrug that says nothing as clearly as his voice says “A
conversation.” He steps forward over the gap between them, pacing out the
distance with as much unconcern as he showed with his back to the fence and his
shoulders over open space; when he tosses his head it’s to flick his hair out
of his eyes so he can meet Shizuo’s gaze directly. “Don’t worry about it,
senpai.”
Shizuo can feel his jaw tighten, can feel his expression set into determination
at the sound of that title and the responsibility that goes with it, however
mocking Izaya’s voice might be. “It looked like he was going to push you off
the roof,” he says, and watches Izaya’s lashes flutter, watches the other’s
gaze pull away for a moment like he can’t make himself meet Shizuo’s stare.
“I would have caught myself,” Izaya says without looking back up. Shizuo can’t
see his eyes, can’t get a read on his expression; he’s still frowning through
an attempt at comprehension when Izaya reaches out towards the lunch in
Shizuo’s hold, his fingertips catching and ghosting electricity out over
Shizuo’s skin that has Shizuo jerking away as if from an open flame almost
before Izaya speaks. “Did you make this yourself?”
“No,” Shizuo says. “My mom made it.” His attention flickers down to the reach
of Izaya’s hand still hovering from where Shizuo snatched his hand back from
the contact, to the complete absence of a bag in Izaya’s hands or over his
shoulder. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure he’s ever seen Izaya eat
anything during the few weeks they’ve spent together during lunch. His forehead
creases, his mouth drags into a frown of concern. “Don’t you have anything to
eat?”
Izaya doesn’t meet Shizuo’s gaze as he shrugs and moves past the other towards
the benches against the far side of the roof. “It’s a pain to bring something,”
he declares, and Shizuo can hear the strain on his voice under the singsongy
attempt at unconcern, can hear the tremor in the other’s throat even if he
can’t see Izaya’s expression to confirm it. “I have better things to do with my
time.”
“Lunch is important,” Shizuo says as he comes across the rooftop to join Izaya
on the bench. Izaya glances sideways at him as he sits down but Shizuo doesn’t
look up to meet the other’s gaze; he keeps his attention on the lunchbag in his
hands, keeps aiming his scowl at the knot in the fabric as he tugs it loose.
There’s pressure in his chest, an ache of something too secondhand to be
sadness but too clear to be ignored; it makes his movements jerkier than usual,
tenses in his chest enough that he has to cough to clear the knot of sympathy
from his throat before he can manage: “You can have some of mine, if you want,”
with his voice gone rough with unfamiliar self-consciousness.
It’s not like it’s a dramatic gesture of friendship; it’s fairly minimal, all
things considered. But with how blase Izaya is when it comes to his own well-
being, Shizuo figures it’s best to start small.
***** Uncomprehending *****
“Do your parents even know I’m coming over?”
Izaya asks the question from Shizuo’s side, where he’s pressed close enough for
his elbow to crush against the other’s arm with every step they take. He’s been
even more energetic than usual since they left school, as if the absence of
classroom walls has set free some repressed store of personality more even than
what he usually demonstrates; they’re not even all the way to Shizuo’s street
yet and he’s already managed to nearly fall while balancing along a low wall
and give Shizuo a pair of bruises from the catch of his elbow against the
other’s arm.
“They’re not home until late tonight,” Shizuo offers in response, taking a
half-step sideways to dodge another blow of Izaya’s swinging arm. “It’ll be
just us and Kasuka.”
“The beloved brother.” Izaya steps in to trail Shizuo’s movement, pressing hard
enough against the other’s shoulder that for a moment Shizuo is carrying the
weight of Izaya’s balance as well as his own. “Does he know I’m coming for
dinner?”
“He won’t care,” Shizuo says immediately, without needing the least pause to
call up the bored acceptance that Kasuka always offers in response to anything
Shizuo tells him. “Kasuka doesn’t mind anything.”
Izaya snorts the edge of a laugh. “He sounds scintillating.”
Shizuo glances sideways, his mouth tightening on a frown at the cut of Izaya’s
tone. “Shut up,” he orders, even though he has no real hope that Izaya will
actually listen to him. “He’s a lot easier to be around than you are.”
Izaya gasps an inhale and lifts a hand to his chest. “Senpai, you wound me.” He
tips his chin down to gaze up through the shadow of his hair at Shizuo; his
eyes look the darker for the cover, his grin the sharper. “Don’t you appreciate
my company?”
Shizuo rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he says again. “Or I’ll leave you here and
you can have dinner by yourself.” Izaya laughs in response to this threat and
leans in hard to catch his elbow at Shizuo’s arm, but he does go obediently
quiet after all, leaving Shizuo to listen to just the sound of their mismatched
footsteps on the sidewalk as he watches Izaya sideways in case the other does
something alarming enough to warrant a response. For once, though, Izaya is
quiet, apparently content to fall to peace alongside Shizuo as they round the
corner to approach the familiar front of Shizuo’s family’s house. Shizuo keeps
his focus on the other boy as they draw closer, watches Izaya’s gaze flicker
across the ordinary lines of the architecture and the front steps of the house,
and so he sees when Izaya blinks himself into judgment, and takes a breath, and
declares “Boring” as if it’s a judgment on Shizuo’s entire life and not just
the appearance of his house.
Shizuo shoots Izaya a frown the other boy doesn’t even bother looking up to see
as he fishes his key free and moves forward to open the door. “I told you,” he
says. “It’s just a house.”
“I didn’t think you were serious,” Izaya starts, but then the door comes open
under Shizuo’s hold, and there’s a shout of “Shizuo!” with far more energy than
Shizuo has ever heard from his brother, and Shizuo is just turning to face the
speaker when Kishitani Shinra topples forward out of the now-open doorway and
directly into a one-sided hug.
“Shinra,” Shizuo sighs over the top of Shinra’s head. “What are you doing
here?”
“He showed up ten minutes ago.” That’s far calmer, objective and disinterested
in a way that declares the speaker to be Kasuka well before Shizuo has actually
looked down the hall to see his brother’s more sedate approach. “He’s been
poking through the house while he waited for you.”
“I haven’t seen you since school started.” Shinra finally lets his hold on
Shizuo’s shoulders go, stepping back by a few inches to beam up at the other
boy. “Aren’t we friends, Shizuo?”
“I’ve been busy,” Shizuo protests, because that seems the fastest way to
express that he’s had more than enough to occupy his attention since school
started thanks to the addition of Izaya to his daily routine. “I joined a
club.”
“No way.” Shinra’s eyes are bright behind his glasses, his smile going wider
even as he says “I’m so jealous. Celty tells me I should join one but none of
them are interesting at all.”
“Can’t you just start your own?” The question is sharp, offered like a blow
from over Shizuo’s shoulder; when Shizuo looks back Izaya is staring at Shinra,
his chin tipped down to throw shadows over his face and his mouth set into a
hard line like Shizuo’s never seen it before. His shoulders are tipping in
around himself, his eyes narrowing to shadow; and then Shinra chirps a laugh so
startling Shizuo can see Izaya flinch from the sudden burst of the sound.
“Sorry!” Shinra steps sideways, dodging Shizuo as if he’s suddenly become the
obstacle of an inanimate object instead of another human being. “Celty always
says I don’t know how to act like a normal person. I’m Kishitani Shinra.”
“Orihara Izaya,” Izaya says. His mouth curves into what Shizuo supposes
technically counts as a smile, but his voice is completely flat, and the
shadows behind his eyes don’t so much as flicker as he offers his hand for
Shinra to shake.
“Are you Shizuo’s friend?” Shinra asks. “He’s an exciting guy, isn’t he?”
“He’s in the club with him.” It’s Kasuka speaking again, before Shizuo or Izaya
have a chance to open their mouths. When Shizuo looks back Kasuka’s standing
framed by the doorway, looking down at the pudding cup in his hand rather than
meeting anyone’s gaze. “Shizuo won’t stop talking about him.”
Shizuo can feel color surge under his skin in a rush of embarrassment too
strong for him to even think about fighting back. “Shut up, Kasuka,” he hisses,
his voice skidding rough on self-consciousness. He can feel the weight of
Izaya’s eyes on him, can feel his cheeks going darker under the other’s
attention. “It’s only because I’m around him all day.”
Kasuka shrugs, his attention already visibly elsewhere, and turns away to move
back into the interior of the house. Shinra skips over the distance to the
inside of the hallway, careful on his toes as if he can protect his socks from
further dirt if he moves carefully enough, and Shizuo is left to radiate
embarrassment under the focus of Izaya’s stare. He looks sideways, just to be
sure he’s not imagining the other’s attention; for a heartbeat their eyes meet,
Izaya’s stare half-lidded with consideration and his mouth quirking on some
unstated taunt before Shizuo looks away again to fight himself back to
coherency.
“Don’t you dare say anything,” he hisses, hearing the words crack off his
tongue like ice to cool the burn of embarrassment in his veins. “It’s only
because you’re such a pest.”
“Sure,” Izaya purrs, some of his usual laughter audible under his voice again.
Shizuo growls, self-conscious frustration too tight in his throat to grant him
the coherency of speech, and he moves towards the doorway instead of looking
back to meet the focus of Izaya’s eyes on him.  Shinra’s waiting just inside
the doorway, hovering at the foot of the stairs and all but glowing with the
irrepressible cheer that always so characterizes his entire existence.
“It really is good to see you!” he burbles while Shizuo drops to sit at the
edge of the entryway and tug at his shoes. “It’s been weeks, how have you
been?”
“Busy,” Shizuo says without looking up. He gets one shoe off and glances back
up to the doorway where Izaya is still hovering on the far side of the front
step; he’s staring down the warm-lit glow of Shizuo’s hallway, his expression
so entirely blank even the curve of his usual smile is absent. Shizuo jerks his
head to gesture Izaya inside, but the other boy doesn’t see the motion, and
Shinra’s still talking with the same manic pace as ever. “I was going to come
and visit a little later in the year, maybe around Christmas, but Celty asked
how you were doing so I came to find out for her! She always asks after my
friends, isn’t that wonderful of her?”
“Yeah,” Shizuo says as he pulls his other shoe free, only half-listening to
Shinra’s favorite topic of conversation. His attention is more caught by Izaya
still standing on the far side of the doorway with his arms crossed over his
chest and his shoulders hunched into a position strangely close to self-
consciousness even though Shizuo’s never seen any indication of shyness from
the other before. “You can come in.” Izaya still doesn’t look at him. “Izaya-
kun.” That finally does it, brings the other boy’s attention swinging sideways
to land at Shizuo’s face; but his mouth is still drawn into that flat line of
tension, his eyes are still dark and completely absent any trace of the sparkle
that’s usually there. Shizuo frowns, feeling a prickle of concern run up his
spine. “Come in and shut the door.”
Izaya stares at him for a long moment, blinking like he doesn’t quite
understand the order; then finally he ducks his head and steps over the
threshold, uncrossing his arms so he can reach behind him and draw the door
shut. He’s still not smiling, still looks tense in a way that catches and holds
Shizuo’s focus, but he doesn’t look up as he moves to sit down and take his
shoes off, and when Shizuo blinks Shinra’s still talking at an unhesitating
pace as if he either didn’t notice or doesn’t care about Shizuo’s distraction.
“--be nervous, if you were someone else, but I trust you, I know you’d never
take Celty away from me!” Shinra’s laugh sparkles bright in the enclosed space;
there’s more than a hint of mania under it, enough that Shizuo would be
concerned if he weren’t more than familiar with this particular aspect of
Shinra’s personality. “She’s always happy when I spend time with my friends, so
I thought I’d come by to visit. And I was right to listen!” He turns his
attention to Izaya, still sitting on the floor with his head bowed low over his
knees as he pulls at his shoes. “Now I can tell her I met Orihara-kun as well!”
Shizuo can see the way Izaya’s head angles up, can see the dark of the other’s
lashes going sharp-edged in profile as he looks up from under the weight of his
hair. His mouth is still set, still harsh at the corners at he stares
unmistakable aggression up at Shinra; but Shinra isn’t even looking at him
anymore, is pushing to his feet and moving down the hallway without even
waiting for a response.
“I’m going to see if Kasuka has any more of those pudding cups,” he announces,
padding away to the living room while Izaya stares shadows at his retreating
back. “Hurry up if you want any!”
“Shut up,” Shizuo calls after him without really thinking over the words at
all. He’s watching Izaya instead, still feeling that tension of concern running
taut all up the line of his back. Izaya watches Shinra go until he turns the
corner into the other room, and then he turns his head again, tipping his chin
so far down Shizuo can’t see his expression at all.
Shizuo frowns unseen. “Izaya-kun?”
“I can find the living room myself,” Izaya says to his feet without raising his
head. “You can go ahead, I’ll catch up.”
Shizuo doesn’t move. “What’s wrong?” he asks, still frowning at the dark of
Izaya’s hair.
Izaya’s shoulders hunch in over his feet. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says, but he’s
still not looking up to meet Shizuo’s gaze.
“You’re acting weird,” Shizuo informs him. “I can ask Shinra to leave, if you
don’t want to see him.”
“No,” Izaya says, dragging his shoe off and pushing it hard against the wall.
His voice is still strained, still tense in the back of his throat like the
stress visible along his shoulders is seeping into his tone. “It’s fine. I
don’t care.” He braces a hand against the floor to push to his feet in a single
fluid movement before Shizuo has a chance to react; he’s turning away down the
hallway while Shizuo is still scrambling to his feet to follow, has his back
turned by the time Shizuo has his balance back and can move forward to step out
of the entryway. Izaya’s shoulders are like a wall, the dark of his hair
falling against the back of his neck like armor; his gaze is often
incomprehensible, his smile inscrutable, but like this Shizuo can’t even make
an attempt at understanding, can’t even manage an initial guess at the cause of
the tension so vivid along the curve of Izaya’s spine regardless of his verbal
denial of it.
Shizuo never expected the line of Izaya’s shoulders to be so effective at
keeping him at bay.
***** Tension *****
Shizuo had hoped Izaya would be better in the morning. The other boy was
uncharacteristically silent the entire evening, so distant and reserved that
Shizuo wondered if he was feeling well and half-expected him to leave before
dinner with some invented excuse. But he stayed through dinner, and for an hour
afterwards, lingering until Shinra finally declared that he needed to go home
and exited with the same precipitous haste with which he does anything, once
he’s made up his mind to it. Shizuo had been almost relieved, had been
expecting to turn his attention to Izaya and pick apart the cause for the
strain still visibly taut across the other’s shoulders; but the front door had
barely shut behind Shinra and Shizuo had barely opened his mouth to speak
before Izaya had pushed to his feet all at once and declared that he was
leaving almost without waiting for a response. He had pushed aside Shizuo’s
offer of company on the way home, had kept his head down the whole time he was
pulling his shoes on, and even when Shizuo called out after him “See you
tomorrow!” he had gotten only a cut of dark eyes and a glimpse of the flat
tension at Izaya’s mouth before the other had turned away and disappeared into
the shadows of the night. Shizuo had worried about it for the rest of the
evening, while he attempted unsuccessfully to distract himself with homework
and then with the routine steps of heading to bed; finally he had managed to
attain sleep only by telling himself it must be a fluke and that Izaya would be
back to his normal self the next day at school.
He’s not. Izaya’s waiting when Shizuo gets out of class for lunch, sitting
against the far wall of the hallway with his arms drawn around his knees and
his eyes fixed on the floor, but he barely glances up to meet Shizuo’s gaze
before he pushes to his feet and takes the lead to the roof without saying
anything at all. Shizuo is left to struggle through conversation, to reiterate
pointless comments about the night before to the unresponsive slouch of Izaya’s
shoulders, and he’s doing his best but Izaya’s giving him nothing at all to
work with, has gone as silent and stoic as if he’s the brick wall his lack of
response makes him seem. He barely replies to Shizuo’s comments, only offering
a snap of a response whenever Shizuo leaves himself particularly open for
criticism, and even when they sit down against the wall alongside the door to
the roof Izaya barely glances at Shizuo’s open lunch and makes no move at all
to reach for it as he usually does. Shizuo takes a bite himself, barely
noticing what he’s eating as he watches Izaya sideways from under his hair, but
Izaya doesn’t look at him, doesn’t show any sign at all of noticing when Shizuo
stretches out to take a second bite from the box, even though he’s usually
certain to eat at least half of what Shizuo brings with him to school. Shizuo
hesitates with his movement unfinished, his appetite dissolving under the
weight of his frown, and finally he caves to the tension and asks “Aren’t you
going to eat something?” without looking away from the dark of Izaya’s hair.
Izaya turns his head at that, but only enough to glance at the lunchbox before
looking away again with a huff of air at his lips that’s a clear rejection even
before he says, “I’m not hungry,” with so much aggression on the words to make
the lie obvious even if Shizuo didn’t already know better. “And definitely not
for that.”
“Fuck you,” Shizuo snaps, and curls his fingers around the edge of the box to
pull it back towards himself. He’s half-expecting a glance, maybe a laugh at
this proof of his irritation; but Izaya just hunches his shoulders in farther
over his knees, the curve of his spine stalling Shizuo’s efforts at speech more
effectively than a glare would do. Shizuo is left to frown at Izaya’s shoulders
as he takes another bite of food that he doesn’t taste, as his attention
circles Izaya’s odd tension instead of his lunch, and finally he coughs into
the quiet and asks, “Do you want to come over again tonight?” with his voice
straining on uncomfortable concern.
Izaya glances back, just for a moment. Shizuo can see the dark of his lashes,
the set of his jaw; then he turns away again, ducking his head back into
invisibility and leaving Shizuo to frown hard at the back of his head instead.
“I have a lit assignment I have to get done,” Shizuo continues. Izaya still
doesn’t look back, doesn’t so much as blink. Shizuo can feel tension collecting
at his spine and unwinding up his back to knot itself to the beginning of heat
across his shoulders. “You must have something you can work on.”
“I don’t know,” Izaya says, his voice strained and odd in his throat. “I might
be busy tonight.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Shizuo’s fingers are tensing, reaching for the comfort of a
fist, aching for the satisfaction of a fight. “What else do you have to do
besides homework?”
“All kinds of things.” The words are harsh, strangely raw on the edges on some
kind of emotion Shizuo can’t place. He still can’t see Izaya’s face. “You’re
not the only person I spend time with, senpai.”
Shizuo opens his mouth. There’s a retort on his tongue, the rough edge of yes I
am falling fast on certainty; and something clicks into place in his head, some
bright flash of understanding illuminating all his confusion like sunlight
breaking over the horizon. He can call up the bright of Izaya’s smile on their
way home together the day before, can think about how many times Izaya has just
appeared when Shizuo was on his own as if he had been summoned, as if he had
dropped everything to arrive at that exact moment. There’s the hunch of Izaya’s
shoulders on the front step of Shizuo’s house, the strange tension under the
smile he forced for Shinra, the way he had refused to leave before Shinra but
left as soon as the other boy had, all the pieces of their interactions falling
together to offer a single cohesive conclusion. It’s a ridiculous assumption to
come to, an impossible contradiction to Izaya’s statement; but it fits too
well, like a puzzle piece perfectly coordinated to pull together the
surroundings blurs of color into a picture, and all the air leaves Shizuo’s
lungs at once as he breathes “Fuck” with sudden understanding filling his
thoughts. “Are you jealous?”
Izaya’s shoulders stiffen instantly, a jerk of response as good as confirmation
if Shizuo needed confirmation, if he weren’t already absolutely certain of his
conclusion. But “Why would I be jealous?” is what Izaya says, his voice
trembling into a strange desperate range that Shizuo’s never heard from him
before.
“Oh my god.” Shizuo tips back against the wall behind him and lifts a hand to
cover his face. Everything is falling into place in his head now, the weight of
epiphany eclipsing almost everything else, but there’s a pressure against the
inside of his chest, an odd tinge of almost-guilt there for not having realized
before that Izaya-- “Shinra’s my friend. You’re my friend. People can have more
than one at a time, you know.”
He means it to be an obvious statement. It feels obvious on his tongue, like
saying the sun will rise in the morning, like saying the night will inevitably
give way to the dawn. But Izaya’s shoulders don’t ease, and he doesn’t turn
back to meet Shizuo’s gaze, and Shizuo wonders if Izaya didn’t know, if while
Shizuo was alone in elementary school but for Shinra Izaya was truly alone, if
Shizuo might not be Izaya’s first real friend.
“Jesus,” he sighs, his voice falling somewhere between the weight of
resignation and a strange warmth in his chest at being so important to someone,
at being so essential to another person. He pushes up off the wall, leaning
forward and reaching out for the fall of dark hair at Izaya’s neck with as much
care as he has ever used in doing anything before. His fingers brush warm skin,
his hand slides up and into the dark of the other’s hair, and Izaya stiffens,
his breath catching on surprise, but Shizuo doesn’t pull away, even though his
heart is pounding too-fast in his chest and his fingers are trembling with the
strain of maintaining unusual gentleness under his touch. Izaya’s hair catches
at his fingers, softer and finer than Shizuo’s own, and Shizuo pushes his hand
sideways in an awkward attempt at comfort before he draws back and ducks his
head to look down at the open lunchbox between them.
“You’re a goddamn mess,” he says before glancing back up, just for a moment, to
see the way Izaya has turned to look at him. Izaya’s eyes are wide, his entire
expression knocked blank on absolute shock; his lips are parted, all the sharp
edges Shizuo has come to recognize as part of his face melted away under the
electricity of surprise. He looks younger than he usually does, like he might
actually be the middle schooler he is. Shizuo looks down before Izaya does,
reaching out for the lunch between them to push it back over the gap until it’s
closer to the other boy’s reach than it is to his.
“I’m still your friend too.” Shizuo looks away from the lunch, back out to the
line of the fence against the sky; he can feel his cheeks going warmer, can
feel the flush of self-consciousness threatening to stain his expression with
all the tells of embarrassment. Izaya’s still looking at him but Shizuo doesn’t
turn his head to meet the other’s gaze; it’s hard enough to get the words he
needs to say out without actively acknowledging the other boy’s attention to
them. “I’m not going to abandon you or whatever it is you think I’m going to
do.” He takes a breath and lets it out again in a rush. “Okay?”
There’s complete silence for a moment. Shizuo can feel self-consciousness taut
along his spine, can feel the attempted casual curl of his fingers trembling up
his whole arm. Then Izaya takes a breath, hard enough that Shizuo can hear it,
and when he says “Whatever you say,” he sounds so completely himself again that
Shizuo is breathing a sigh of relief even before he looks sideways to see the
way Izaya is grinning at him. “I’m relying on you, Shizuo-senpai.”
Shizuo can feel his face surge into flame, embarrassment breaking free to spill
red all across his cheeks. “Oh, shut up,” he snaps, but Izaya just laughs, and
Shizuo can’t fight back the tension of the answering smile that pulls at the
corner of his mouth as Izaya reaches out for a bite from the open lunchbox.
Izaya keeps smiling through the rest of the break.
***** Illuminating *****
Izaya’s home is more normal than Shizuo expects it to be.
He doesn’t know what exactly he was expecting. Izaya’s scattered off-hand
stories about his home life like breadcrumbs since the first day they spoke,
delivering every statement with such a smirk or a trailing giggle that Shizuo
has known better than to take the other at his word for even a moment. But he
had been so dismissive of Shizuo’s home that Shizuo had been expecting...a
mansion, maybe, or an apartment in the expensive streets of the city’s
downtown, something exotic and strange enough to explain away the odd bright
behind Izaya’s eyes and the manic energy that he seems to carry like
electricity in his veins. Shizuo doesn’t even realize that he’s anticipating
something unusual until Izaya cuts himself off mid-sentence with “Here,”
blurted like a command as he pivots off the main street, and then he has to
hesitate a moment before he can even bring his focus around to the stunningly
ordinary house in front of them. There’s nothing to distinguish it from the
adjacent home at all; even the nameplate by the front is generic, bland and
inoffensive as the clean walkway, the untouched planters out front, the windows
empty of any sign of human habitation other than the blinds drawn shut over the
glass. Shizuo blinks, frowning at his own confusion, and then he has to jog to
catch up to Izaya as the other pulls his keys out of his pocket. There’s a
strange tension across Izaya’s shoulders, some suggestion of that hunch that
Shizuo hasn’t seen since the other came over to his own home; but there’s only
a moment for him to pay attention to the duck of Izaya’s head and the rattle of
the keys in his hand before Izaya is pushing the door open and declaring “My
humble abode” with a strange slur of mockery on the words as he steps forward
into the interior.
Shizuo doesn’t realize, right away, why he hesitates. There’s something
straining in his chest, an odd anxiety it takes him a moment to place; and then
Izaya reaches sideways without looking for the lightswitch, and it’s only as
the illumination spreads to glow in the entryway that Shizuo realizes it was
absent in the first place, that it was the darkness of the house that was in
such opposition to his expectations. There’s nothing to see even with the light
on; the entryway is empty, what little of the hallway Shizuo can see as barren
as the planters and the front windows of the house, and Shizuo hesitates on the
front step, his instincts flinching back from entering a space that seems so
completely unoccupied as to be more a facade that a real home.
It’s Izaya’s voice that breaks him from his distraction, that brings Shizuo
blinking back to reality with an embarrassed rush of self-consciousness. “Do I
need to invite you in like a vampire, senpai?” Shizuo looks back to Izaya but
the other isn’t looking at him; he has his head ducked instead, is watching his
feet as if the act of kicking his shoes off requires as much focus as he can
bring to it. The house still looks empty, almost abandoned; but Izaya isn’t
hesitating, looks as comfortable as he ever does but for the strain across his
shoulders, and he’s had that the whole way back from school. Shizuo obeys the
not-quite-spoken suggestion, stepping in over the threshold and into the dim-
lit silence of the house; when he pushes the door shut behind them the quiet is
only more oppressive, as if he’s shut out the rest of the world to leave only
the two of them in existence anywhere.
The answer to his question is obvious, clear in the dark hallways and the
silence from the rest of the house, but Shizuo asks it anyway, just because the
obvious conclusion seems almost impossible for him to fathom. “Isn’t anyone
home?”
“Oh no,” Izaya says, his voice skidding out sharply before he coughs and
resumes his usual amused lilt. “My sisters won’t be home from preschool for
another hour.”
Shizuo blinks. He hadn’t even known Izaya had sisters at all. The idea is
strangely jarring, like missing a step at the top of the stairs. When he looks
back Izaya is watching him from under his hair, his eyes unreadable in the dim
lighting of the entryway. “What about your mom?”
“Business trip.” Izaya looks back down to his shoes, hiding his eyes behind the
angle of his lashes as he carefully works his foot free. “We have the place to
ourselves. Exciting, isn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer; he’s leaving his
shoes by the entryway and turning towards the stairs to climb the span of them
without taking the time to turn on another light or give Shizuo a chance to
react.
“Wait,” Shizuo growls. He kicks at his shoes, struggling himself free of them
before he turns to bolt up the darkened stairs after Izaya. “You’re all alone
in this house?”
“Sure.” Izaya’s voice sounds strained, like he’s fighting for breath even
though his pace up the stairs is far slower than the rush Shizuo has made to
catch up to him; even in the dark Shizuo can see the tension in his shoulders.
“I can take care of myself.”
Shizuo frowns unseen at the back of Izaya’s shoulders, at the defensive hunch
forming along the other boy’s spine, and the tone in Izaya’s voice says he
should drop the subject but there’s a pressure in his chest, a strange tangle
of sympathy and worry that’s knotting in his throat and refusing to let him
remain silent. “What about your sisters?”
“They’re twins,” Izaya says, and that wasn’t what Shizuo had meant but Izaya is
taking the lead down a hallway so dark Shizuo can barely see the edge of the
banister running along the top of the stairs and he has to focus on not
tripping as he follows the slightly darker silhouette of Izaya’s shoulders
against the grey. “They’re only four, they spend most of their day at
preschool. I’m sure we can find something to eat for dinner when they get
here.” He opens the door to a room Shizuo can barely see, moving to flick on
the light just inside the doorway; Shizuo flinches from the sudden burst of
illumination, his eyes protesting the sharp edge of light against the dark
silence of the rest of the house.
“That’s not what I mean,” Shizuo protests as he blinks painful brightness from
his eyes and brings his attention back to focus on the tension in Izaya’s
shoulders as he tosses his bag onto his chair, watching the strain clear across
the whole line of the other’s back as Shizuo continues to push on what he knows
he should leave alone, as he keeps pressing for information he thinks he’d
rather not know. But the dark of the house is like a weight on his shoulders,
pressing down on him with a loneliness so strong he can feel it like it’s his
own, and Izaya still has his back turned like he’s carrying a shadow in the
line of his spine and the curve of his shoulders. Shizuo can imagine the warmth
of his own house, the calm sound of Kasuka’s voice greeting his “I’m home” as
he comes in the front door or his mother calling to him from the kitchen, all
the normal comforts of home that he takes for granted, that overlay the dark
silence of Izaya’s house like an unspoken judgment. “Doesn’t anyone care what
you do?”
Izaya coughs a laugh. It’s shrill against the quiet of the empty house, loud
and so raw at the edges it sounds almost more like a sob than real amusement,
sounds painful even before the other turns to fix Shizuo with a stare so
vicious it might as well be a slap in the face.
“Of course they don’t,” Izaya spits, his mouth curling on the words like he’s
honing them to a razor edge, framing them into mocking laughter for Shizuo’s
foolishness in ever thinking anything else. His hands are curling at his sides,
his fingers working like he’s thinking about making a fist or trying to grasp
the handle of some absent weapon; Shizuo can see the strain in the angle of his
fingers as clearly as the expectation of violence hunching along Izaya’s
shoulders. “Why should they?”
Shizuo can feel the surge of anger hit him. It’s like a wave, a rush of
adrenaline that lances into his blood like electricity to tense in his
shoulders and rush his breathing faster in his chest. It’s impossible to avoid,
impossible to restrain with Izaya staring at him like he is, with his mouth
dragging into that taunt of a grin and his shoulders hunched forward as if any
amount of bracing himself would hold him steady against the full weight of
Shizuo’s punch. He’s throwing his words like knives, like they’re a joke, like
the idea that anyone could possibly give a damn about his existence is too
absurd to even be borne. Shizuo wants to smack him, wants to shove Izaya back
against the wall of his cluttered bedroom and shake him until he takes back the
sincerity on his words, until he apologizes for so casually dismissing his own
worth, for so easily brushing aside what he should demand, what he should
expect from his family. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his eyes dipping to black for
just a moment; and his gaze drops, his attention falling to Shizuo’s hands at
his sides. Shizuo can see his smile flicker away, can see his lips part on a
sigh that’s a little bit resignation and a little bit expectation, like he
wants Shizuo to hit him, like he’s just standing there waiting for the pain of
a blow to fall. Izaya’s forehead creases, his throat works on a swallow; and
Shizuo opens his mouth, and says “I do,” instead of swinging into the relief of
violence laid tense all along his spine.
Izaya looks up at once. His eyes are wide, visibly startled by Shizuo speaking;
the light from overhead catches his eyes as he lifts his chin to meet Shizuo’s
gaze, bringing out the shading of scarlet behind the dark of his lashes and the
fall of his hair. Shizuo can feel the strain of irritation still taut across
his shoulders, still tense in his knuckles; it takes a conscious effort of will
to ease his hands, to breathe out slowly enough to let the adrenaline go, and
when he speaks the effort is audible in his voice and drags his speech into a
far lower range than he intends it to be. “Okay?”
Izaya tenses. His hands ball into fists at his sides, his shoulders tip back
and away; Shizuo hadn’t even realized Izaya was leaning in towards him before.
It’s as if the promise of a blow was magnetic but the force of words is enough
to shove him back physically, like violence was alluring but gentleness of
speech forces him into defensiveness. His forehead creases, his eyes narrow;
for a moment Shizuo thinks Izaya might be about to hit him, might be about to
lash out with the unreadable tension straining all across his shoulders. But
then:
“Fine,” Izaya manages, his voice only barely catching on the word. He blinks
hard, like he’s trying to clear his vision of sunspots, his mouth twisting on
some emotion too repressed for Shizuo to interpret. “You can do whatever you
want, senpai, I don’t care.”
He’s lying. There’s no question of it in Shizuo’s mind; it’s crystal clear in
the fists Izaya’s still making at his sides, in the audible quaver in his
voice, in the shadows in his eyes that look a little like tears if Shizuo looks
too close. But Shizuo can feel his shoulders relaxing, can feel the anger in
him easing like the tide rolling back out to sea, and when he takes a breath he
can feel it come easier in his chest, like the loss of his frustration has
taken some of the sharp-pain sympathy with it too.
“Good,” he says, and turns away to give Izaya a moment to blink back the damp
in his eyes, to reconstruct whatever mask he wants to put on for the purposes
of the evening. The room is cluttered, visibly lived-in like it’s
singlehandedly making up for the rest of the house; Shizuo’s attention flickers
from a stack of books to the tangle of the unmade bedsheets to the array of
tiles spread out over a game board set close to the floor, and lands on the
last as the best option for a conversational tangent. “Are you playing shogi?”
It’s an obvious subject change. If Izaya wanted to call him out on it Shizuo is
sure it would take no effort at all. But he huffs a laugh instead, and offers
the quick bite of an insult with some of his usual tone back in his voice, and
when Shizuo growls a response Izaya just smiles at him and draws him into a
game before Shizuo has quite realized what is happening.
He doesn’t really mind, even if Izaya seems to be making up the rules of the
game as he goes and spends as much time laughing at Shizuo’s mistakes as making
his own moves. It’s easy to forget about the quiet dark of the rest of the
house with both of them together to fill up this corner of it.
***** Caring *****
Shizuo is distracted the whole walk back to his house. It’s dark by the time he
leaves Izaya and his sisters Mairu and Kururi to take care of themselves for
the rest of the night; the sun has vanished below the city skyline and the
light of day is fading fast with each block Shizuo crosses. He has his head
down, his attention lost in the spin of his own thoughts; he’s so distracted
that he doesn’t see the handful of attackers that come to circle around him,
that declare themselves with the mocking laugh of a challenge when he’s still a
mile from home. That does provide a brief interlude for the few minutes it
takes for him to leave them all groaning or unconscious on the sidewalk, but
even the frustration that always comes with violence melts away within seconds
of leaving them behind. Shizuo’s thoughts keep circling back to the strain in
Izaya’s shoulders as they climbed the other’s dim-lit staircase, keep hovering
around the confused tension in his face when Shizuo tried to offer reassurance
instead of aggression. It was better when the twins showed up -- there’s always
more than enough to stay distracted when young kids are around, Shizuo has
found, and with two at once his hands were full enough that he didn’t pay
attention to what Izaya was doing in the kitchen. It’s not until he thinks back
on it now that he realizes how empty the room was as well as the rest of the
house, that he considers that the random assortment of items Izaya came back
with might be from a lack of other options rather than unwillingness to bother
further with the effort of producing dinner. He wants to reject the idea, wants
to find evidence to contradict his conclusion so he can push it away with
certainty; but it latches in against the inside of his chest, gaining more
force with every moment he considers it instead of lightening, and by the time
he pushes open the front door to his home he can feel the ache of sympathy more
clearly than the bruise rising on his jaw from his brief fight.
“I’m home,” he calls without looking up from the process of working his shoes
off. There’s no one in the hallway but there’s a glow of light from the
kitchen, and he’s only just pushed the door closed when his mother’s voice
calls “Welcome home!” from the other side of the house. It makes Shizuo smile,
the familiarity of the back-and-forth easing some of the uncomfortable strain
in his chest, and when he steps out of the entryway it’s to head down the hall
towards the kitchen instead of up the stairs to his room.
His mother is in the middle of cooking when he comes around the doorway into
the kitchen. There’s a pair of lunchboxes out on the counter and a pan on the
stove; as Shizuo comes closer to peer into the still-empty boxes she looks back
over her shoulder to flash a smile in his direction.
“Welcome back,” she says, turning to the pan as she pours a bowlful of eggs
into it. They hiss as they hit the metal, cooking on contact with the heat;
there’s a rattle as she drags the pan across the burner to coat the surface
evenly before turning back around to grant Shizuo her full attention. “Do you
have any homework to finish tonight?”
Shizuo shakes his head. He’s not looking at his mother; his attention is caught
by the weight of the pan on the stove and the curl of steam rising from the
eggs as they cook. “I did it all at school before I went over to Izaya-kun’s.”
“He’s the other boy in the club with you, isn’t he?” his mother asks without
looking up from the vegetables she’s cutting over the counter.
“Yeah.” Shizuo braces his elbow against the counter so he can lean against the
support of his hands. “He has siblings too. Two little sisters, twins.”
“That’s unusual,” his mother hums, audibly distracted by what she’s doing. “Are
they young?”
“They’re four.”
Shizuo’s mother smiles down at the counter. “They must be a handful.”
“Yeah.” Shizuo reaches for one of the empty lunchboxes on the counter to hook
his fingers around the edge and slide it idly towards him. “They were a lot to
deal with.”
“It’s nice to have a house full of children,” his mother goes on, her smile
still warm against the corners of her mouth. “I wouldn’t say no to a few more
girls myself.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes at this too-familiar complaint. “Yeah, thanks mom.”
“Not that I don’t love my boys,” she says, looking up to smile at him. Her gaze
slides across his face and catches at his jaw as something flickers behind her
eyes. “Did you get in a fight again?”
Shizuo can feel his shoulders hunch towards his ears, can feel his whole body
curl in on itself like he’s trying to hide in plain sight. “I didn’t mean to,”
he mumbles down at the counter. “I didn’t see them coming until they were on
me.”
“Mm.” There’s a touch against Shizuo’s hair, a hand catching at his head to tip
him sideways and up to the light; Shizuo capitulates to the force without
raising his eyes, letting his mother consider the bruise he can feel aching
along his jaw. “I’ll get you some ice to keep the swelling down.”
“It’s fine,” Shizuo says, but he’s moving away anyway, knows better than to try
to talk his mother out of nursing even his minor injuries back to health. “I’ll
get it.” It only takes a moment to find one of the ice packs in the freezer -
- a necessity more for Shizuo’s bruises than for keeping actual food items cold
-- and by the time Shizuo has returned to his position over the counter his
mother is leaning over the stove again as she rolls the cooking eggs over onto
themselves. Shizuo presses the ice against his jaw, feels the comfort of the
chill spread out to numb the faint hurt of the swelling rising under his skin,
and then he takes a breath to speak just as his mother pulls the pan off the
stove. “Can you make an extra lunch for me tomorrow?”
His mother glances back at him, her attention only momentarily pulled away from
what she’s doing by surprise. “Sure,” she says, but Shizuo can hear confusion
under her voice even as she slides the cooked eggs out onto the plate next to
her. “Are you still hungry after finishing your first one?”
“Oh,” Shizuo says. “No. It’s fine.” He ducks his head farther down so his hair
falls into a curtain in front of his face as he drags the empty lunchbox across
the counter with the tips of his fingers. “I share a lot of mine with Izaya-kun
most days.”
“Oh,” his mother says. Shizuo doesn’t look up. There’s a brief pause, the
silence weighted with the question Shizuo knows is coming well before his
mother actually puts voice to it. “He doesn’t have one of his own?”
“He never brings a lunchbox.” Shizuo can feel his mouth drawing into a scowl,
can feel the tension of the expression aching against his bruised jaw. “And
I’ve never seen him buy something to eat.”
Shizuo can hear concern under his mother’s voice when she speaks again, knows
without looking up that her forehead will be creasing on secondhand worry.
“What does he do when you’re not there?”
Shizuo shrugs without looking up. It’s not a question he likes to think about
and one he can’t avoid any more than he can help noticing how thin Izaya’s
shoulders are and how fragile his wrists look every time he braces himself into
one of the reckless tilts he likes to take out of windows or over fencetops. It
always makes his chest knot uncomfortably, makes his throat feel weird and raw
until it’s hard to catch a breath; now, with the darkness of Izaya’s empty
house in the back of his head, the weight is only worse, the pressure of
sympathy only tighter in him.
“Okay,” his mother says, her voice carefully gentle in that way she sometimes
gets when Shizuo starts to tense up on frustration. Shizuo flinches from the
sound of it, looks up with an apology on his lips; but she’s not cringing away
from him, isn’t even watching him anymore. She’s turned back around to the
plate, apparently completely willing to dedicate her focus to what she’s doing
while incidentally giving him a moment to compose himself with no audience. “No
problem, I can make three lunches just as easily as two. I can’t have growing
boys going hungry on my watch.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo agrees, relief heavy on his tongue. “Thanks, mom.”
“Of course.” His mother turns to reach for one of the lunchboxes out on the
counter to move it to the other side of the kitchen without looking at Shizuo’s
expression. “I’ll have them both ready for you in the morning. You should take
a shower and head to bed, it’s getting late.”
“Sure,” Shizuo says, relieved as much by the excuse to leave the lingering
strain of the conversation as by the idea of the comfort a shower will offer.
“I will.”
He lets his hold on the lunchbox go and moves towards the door, still pressing
the ice pack against the bruise on his face; he’s nearly to the hallway when
his mother says “Shizuo,” with the off-hand calm that always makes Shizuo’s
spine tense in anticipation of something dramatic. He hesitates at the door,
glancing back over his shoulder to frown uncertainty at his mother’s back.
“What is it?”
“Does Orihara-kun like anything in particular to eat?” She hasn’t looked up
from the counter; as far as Shizuo can tell her whole attention is on the
careful cuts she’s making in the cooked egg. “It’s a bit late for shopping
tonight, but I’m going to be picking up more groceries tomorrow if there’s
something he prefers.”
Shizuo can feel his face warm with embarrassment in spite of the chill of the
ice pack against his jaw. “I don’t know,” he admits. “He always eats everything
you usually make for me.”
“Alright.” His mother lifts the plate and starts sliding slices of egg into the
empty lunchbox. “If he mentions anything let me know.”
“Yeah, okay,” Shizuo says. “I’m going to take that shower. ‘Night,” and he
turns to escape down the hallway before his mother gives him any more questions
to field.
He’s still blushing when he shuts the door to the bathroom behind him, but when
he glances in the mirror his smile is as least as bright as his embarrassment.
***** Disregard *****
Shizuo hates fights.
It’s truer than his behavior might make it seem. He does hate them, hates the
constant weight of his own strength bearing down on his awareness and the
knowledge that a stranger on the street has at least even odds of being a gang
member trying to prove himself rather than just another passerby. He hates the
way his whole body hurts afterwards, hates the color of drying blood flaking
off torn-open knuckles and the way he can never find a source for most of the
bruises that mark his skin like tokens of his true nature that don’t have time
to fade before there’s another set to take their place. He hates it, hates it
with a deep-down loathing as hot in him as the blood in his veins, and most of
all he hates that in the middle of a fight, in the immediate rush of adrenaline
through his too-strong body, he sometimes forgets to hate it at all. It’s not
his fault, he thinks; he can barely recall his actions after the fact, he
certainly can’t help the surge of vicious satisfaction that rushes through him
when he turns to meet an attacker with balled-up knuckles that stop their
forward momentum dead in its tracks. He hates the aftereffects, hates the chill
absence of adrenaline as it flickers and fades from his body, and he just hates
it the more for the sense of loss that always comes with it, as if he’s falling
back into a hazy sleep after being briefly, incandescently alive for a few
moments. It’s nauseating to think about, horrifying to even acknowledge how
brilliantly present he feels when he’s fighting; but even if he can avoid
thinking about it most of the time it’s impossible to ignore in the last few
heartbeats of a fight, when his opponents are still around him and there’s no
time to do anything but brace himself against the hangover of normalcy rushing
towards him as adrenaline releases its fever-bright hold on him.
“We’ll be back,” the last of his opponents spits this time, a threat so half-
formed Shizuo barely bothers listening to the meaning under the words. “We’ll
remember you. You’ll regret making an enemy of Blue Square, kid.”
Shizuo doesn’t bother reaching for words. Coherency is too hard when he feels
like this, when there’s nothing but rage flaring to an open flame in his veins;
easier to let the adrenaline speak for him, easier to let the edge of fury grab
at the top of his spine and shake him into narrowed eyes and bared teeth. He
isn’t expecting to make the sound he does -- a low rumble of noise so far back
in his chest he can feel it resonate at his teeth as it spills past his lips -
- but he wouldn’t try to stop it if he could. He’s ready to lunge forward,
ready to ride the crest of another wave of adrenaline to crush the resistance
in this enemy into the pavement in front of him; but the man does what they all
do, what Shizuo should have expected he would do, and turns tail to run for the
main street with the alacrity of an animal fleeing certain death. Something in
Shizuo’s mind purrs satisfaction, growling victory in a range as easily
understood as the other’s instinctive panic; but he can feel the tension in him
easing, can feel the first edge of pain starting to whisper at the back of his
mind, and he’s just breathing himself back into rationality when there’s a
voice from the edge of the field of destruction, a high taunting lilt that
Shizuo is rapidly learning to expect as a matter of course at the end of his
fights.
“Another one down.” Izaya’s coming forward without any sign of hesitation
either for Shizuo’s fallen attackers or the lingering frustration Shizuo knows
is all over his face; he’s not even watching his feet as he maneuvers around
the shapes littering the alley. He’s watching Shizuo instead, his head tipped
to the side and lips pulling on a smile sharp enough to cut the bright of
sincerity into his eyes, when Shizuo thinks to look for it. “Soon every major
crime organization in the city will have a vendetta against you, senpai.
Congratulations.”
Shizuo narrows his eyes at the other boy. “What are you doing here?”
Izaya raises a shoulder in an off-hand shrug. “I heard the fight from a few
blocks away.” He’s coming closer still, past the last of Shizuo’s attackers and
into the clear space marking out a circle around the other boy; there’s no
visible hesitation in his stride, no flicker of fear anywhere in his
expression. “Too bad I missed the best part of it.”
“Best.” Shizuo reaches up to shove the sweat-damp of his hair back from his
face. “You’re really fucked up, you know that?” There’s an ache across the back
of his hand, the protest of an injury making itself known; when he looks down
there’s blood across his fingers, drying sticky over his knuckles and smeared
over his palm. “You shouldn’t be here, you’ll get yourself hurt.”
“Says the one bleeding onto the street.” Shizuo fixes Izaya with a glare but
the other’s expression doesn’t so much as flicker; he’s still smiling, still
looking utterly at ease amid the remnants of the violence Shizuo’s own hands
have wrought, as if Shizuo couldn’t swing a fist and break his collarbone, as
if Shizuo isn’t a barely-restrained source of danger that could go off like a
bomb at any time. “I can take care of myself, senpai.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Shizuo snaps. His hand aches again; he can see the cut
scabbing itself closed, the blood starting to dry to the beginnings of healing.
He makes a fist just to spite his own body, watches the cut reopen to trickle
blood across his skin. At least it’s his own, this time; he’s not sure the rest
of the color across his hands is all from his own injuries. “I could break you
with one hand.”
He means it as a warning, means it as self-deprecation, an insult turned in on
himself as a reminder of what he could do, what might happen if Izaya is too
close the next time he loses his temper, if Izaya is the one to cause him to
snap. But Izaya huffs a sound like a laugh, and when Shizuo glances up at him
Izaya’s eyes are dark under his lashes, his mouth dragging onto a smile that
still, even now, shows none of the fear Shizuo knows he deserves.
“Probably,” he purrs, and even that sounds hot, more like a laugh or a
suggestion than admission of the danger Shizuo presents to him. “You’d have to
catch me first, though.”
Shizuo huffs an exhale, startled into reaction by pure surprise at this
comeback. “You’d just be running, that’s not a fight.”
Izaya’s smile pulls wider. “You can’t win if you can’t catch me” and he’s
moving, tipping in so close Shizuo falls back reflexively just to keep Izaya
from running into him bodily. He’s still trying to catch his balance when
Izaya’s hand comes up, when there’s a jolt of pain at his forehead as Izaya
flicks at him, and hard on the heels of the pain is a murmur of adrenaline, the
beginnings of irritation purring hopefully along his spine as he hisses and
lifts a hand to press against the possibility of a bruise. He frowns at the
other boy, opens his mouth to growl a warning, but Izaya’s moving back again,
skipping light over his steps to regain a comfortable gap between them as he
goes on talking. “Besides, just because you don’t indulge in weapons doesn’t
mean no one else does.”
Shizuo is still blinking confusion at this when Izaya’s hand snaps out of his
pocket, the speed of his motion so startling that Shizuo flinches back before
he has a good look at the other’s hand. There’s a rush of adrenaline spiking in
him, locking all his limbs into the expectation of pain, of violence, of a need
for self-defense; and then his vision focuses on Izaya’s hand, on the loose
curl of his fingers around nothing at all, and he hisses, the tension in him
turning his exhale of relief into a growl even as Izaya’s voice cracks into the
high, manic edge that always characterizes his laughter. Shizuo looks up to
glare at Izaya, to glower the anger that from him always means danger at the
other, but even when he takes a step forward to make threat into reality
there’s no fear in Izaya’s eyes, nothing but amusement as he skips backwards by
a step without looking.
“Did you think I actually had something?” he asks, swinging his hand wide as if
he really is holding a knife, as if there is something in his hand to warrant
the angle of his wrist that would be a threat with more behind it but the
fragility of his fingers. “Senpai, really, you have to get better at judging
people. Where would I get a knife?”
“Anywhere.” Shizuo reaches out fast, grabbing at the arc of motion Izaya is
marking out with his hand; Izaya’s wrist smacks hard against his palm, his
fingers close tight around the narrow line of the other’s arm to stall the
teasing motion the other is making, but Izaya doesn’t seem at all perturbed by
Shizuo’s hold. He just smiles up at him, that strange sharp-edged expression
that never touches the dark in his eyes, and lets the whole weight of his arm
hang against Shizuo’s grip. It makes Shizuo’s frown dig deeper at the corners
of his mouth, tenses his forehead farther on a crease of frustration as his
fingers tighten against Izaya’s skin. “From wherever you go that you’re not
supposed to be.”
“I go a lot of places I shouldn’t, senpai.” Izaya’s voice turns the words
nearly flirtatious, dipping them over heat in the back of his throat as he tips
his head to stare shadows up at Shizuo. “Can’t you be more specific?”
Shizuo groans surrender, rolls his eyes in irritated capitulation even before
he says “No” and drops Izaya’s wrist to fall back to the other’s side. “I don’t
know where the hell you go half the time. You’re going to get yourself hurt if
you keep playing with this part of the city.”
Izaya doesn’t appear particularly concerned. He just laughs again, his mouth
tensing on that lopsided smile that just goes the wider when Shizuo glares at
him. “I’m not the one getting into fistfights in the middle of Ikebukuro.” He
lifts his chin to look out over the array of unconscious forms littering the
ground around them; there’s a strange dismissiveness to his gaze, as if he’s
looking down on the fallen bodies from a much greater height than he is, as if
he would be better framed at the top of a building, or higher still, among the
uncaring clouds drifting past overhead. It’s as if he’s not even seeing the
splashes of blood soaking into the concrete, as if he doesn’t even notice the
tension of potential danger straining irritation against Shizuo’s shoulders.
“You’ll get expelled before you even take your high school entrance exams if
you keep acting like a delinquent, Shizuo-senpai.”
“I’m not--” a delinquent, Shizuo wants to say. Your senpai might be more
accurate; he hardly feels deserving of respect at the moment, at least, with
the title turning to laughter on Izaya’s tongue and the other clearly far more
in control of himself than Shizuo feels even now, with the dregs of his fading
anger left to fade to bitter regret in his veins. It’s almost jealousy dragging
at the corners of his mouth as he frowns at Izaya, like the other boy has
somehow stolen Shizuo’s calm and made his own armor of it. “They attacked me.
It’s not like I came out here to pick a fight.”
Izaya raises an eyebrow. “You always say that,” he says, as thoughtfully as if
he’s really thinking over the words. “Funny how you always end up in one
anyway.”
“I don’t want to be.” Shizuo can feel himself scowling, can feel the weight of
irritation hunching against his shoulders like a burden too much even for him
to bear. Izaya is still slouching into comfort in front of him, his hands slack
and easy at his sides; there’s a shadow along one wrist, just under the hem of
his sleeve. Shizuo stares at it for a moment, trying to place the reason for
the darkness; and then he understands at once, as he fits together the pattern
of a rising bruise into the shape of his fingerprints, the afterimage of his
casual hold at the other’s arm moments ago rising to the surface to speak to
the damage he does even accidentally. He flinches away from it, looking out to
the main street instead of keeping his gaze on Izaya’s skin, but it’s not like
it makes a difference; he can still feel the weight of responsibility in his
own fingers, can feel guilt settle atop what he’s already carrying like it’s
trying to crush his much-broken bones under a truly unbearable weight. He
wonders how many other times he’s left bruises on Izaya’s wrists, how much hurt
he’s given without even trying to, without even thinking about it. When he
speaks it’s soft, almost a whisper, as much voice for his own aching heart as
it is for the conversation. “I hate this.”
“That doesn’t really matter.”
Izaya’s voice is clear and loud enough that it nearly echoes off the walls of
the surrounding buildings. Shizuo blinks, startled out of his own inner
monologue by this casual rejection of his misery; when he looks back Izaya is
grinning at him, his eyes sparkling dark without any trace of the sympathy
Shizuo half-expected to see there. “It’s not like it’s going to stop happening
just because you want it to. Are you really planning to spend the rest of your
life moping about a fact of your existence you can’t change?” Izaya’s head
tips, his hair falls clear of his eyes; the sunlight catches the dark of them
to pull the shadows away and flare them to scarlet. “Or are you going to
embrace what you really are?”
Shizuo stares at the color bleeding into Izaya’s eyes, at the flash of his
smile in the sunlight. “Which is?”
Izaya lifts his arms from his sides, drawing them out to take up space in the
world like he’s unfurling wings from along his spine. “Do I have to say it
again?”
Shizuo can see the prints of his fingers on Izaya’s skin, the shadow of his
hold bruising to visibility against the delicate line of the other’s
outstretched wrist. “You’re telling me to accept that I’m a monster.”
“It’s better than hating yourself, isn’t it?” Izaya’s smile pulls wider as he
turns on his heel, swinging his weight out into an arc to start to move away
while his arms are still extended into the open air. He takes a step towards
the main street, his hands falling back to relaxation at his sides, and Shizuo
moves without thinking, following the angle of Izaya’s shoulders as much as the
unanswered question in the air.
“I don’t hate myself,” he says, but the words come out flat and meaningless on
his tongue even as he says them, sounding so unconvincing he’s cringing back
from their insincerity even before Izaya answers.
“I know you do.” He doesn’t look back; he’s speaking to the street, speaking to
the air, as if he doesn’t care if Shizuo is listening, as if he knows the other
is there without needing to look for him. “It’s alright though. I don’t hate
you, even if you are a monster.”
Shizuo can feel his spine prickle, a chill of surprise with flushing
embarrassment following hard on its heels. His gaze drops back to Izaya’s
wrist, to the bruise he left there without thought or intention either one. It
feels like a black mark in his mind, like a weight of guilt against his
shoulders; but Izaya is brushing it away as if it doesn’t matter at all, as if
all the burden of Shizuo’s accumulated guilt is feather-light against the
casual wave of his hand.
Shizuo isn’t sure if he’s more offended or touched by the disregard, but he
feels lighter already.
***** Epiphany *****
Shizuo is really starting to worry about Izaya.
It was bad enough before, when all he had to think about were inconveniently
open windows or the chest-high mesh of the fence around the school rooftop.
There aren’t that many places high enough to fall from in the span of Shizuo’s
daily life, and even with Izaya’s determination to actively seek those out it’s
not impossible to keep an eye on him to prevent an accident. But Izaya still
insists on appearing at the least opportune moments, when Shizuo is the middle
of or just finishing a fight and still glowing all-over with anger and
lingering adrenaline looking for an outlet, as if the danger Shizuo’s strength
offers is just another ledge for him to climb onto. Fights have at least become
less common with the advent of winter -- even the gangs don’t want much to do
with the outdoors when it’s as cold as Christmas this year proved to be -- but
the weather has brought with it an entirely new concern that Shizuo didn’t even
think to contemplate. Izaya showed up the day after Christmas in response to
Shizuo’s invitation without anything more substantial than a shirt and jeans on
and so visibly cold that he couldn’t even manage a smirk when Shizuo had opened
the door and blurted “Where’s your coat?” in the first shock. At least the
house is warm, as soon as Shizuo got Izaya into the entryway and shut the door
behind him, and it was easy enough to deposit the other boy under the kotatsu
to shiver himself back to warmth while Shizuo went to poke at the thermostat in
an attempt to raise the temperature by a few degrees without his parents
noticing. By the time he came back a little of the color had returned to
Izaya’s face, and if he was still shaking it was with less of the helpless
force he showed originally, and Shizuo felt reasonably secure in leaving him
alone for the few minutes it took him to brew a pot of tea to act as a second
step in the keep-Orihara-Izaya-from-freezing plan. He comes back five minutes
after he left with a cup of tea in each hand to find Izaya curled in over the
kotatsu, his shoulders tipped forward over the surface and his hands under the
warmth of the edge along with his legs.
“Tea,” Shizuo says shortly, coming into the room and kicking the door mostly-
shut behind him for what added warmth the enclosed space will grant them. “You
should drink this.”
“Wow,” Izaya drawls, looking up as Shizuo comes forward to set down a cup by
the other’s elbow. “Really, senpai, you’re too good to me.”
“Be quiet,” Shizuo says, but it’s hard to find any real irritation for the
words; he’s too relieved to see the proof of the other’s increasing comfort in
the shadows reinstated behind Izaya’s eyes and the drag of his mouth on his
usual smirk. “Move over, I need space on my side too.”
“Did your mother never teach you to say please?” Izaya wants to know, but he
shifts minimally as Shizuo sets the other cup of tea down on the far side of
the kotatsu and sits to slide his feet in under the blanket around the edge.
It’s warm under the surface, the radiance of the heater spreading out to ease
the constant tension along Shizuo’s spine that comes with the winter cold, but
Shizuo barely fits his knees under the blanket before his feet bump against
Izaya’s shins angled wide to occupy the warmest spots over the heater.
“Move over,” he repeats, growling the words across the table at the other boy.
“You’re taking up all the foot space.”
“I’m cold,” Izaya pouts, dragging the last word into a whine as he lets his
knee fall farther into Shizuo’s space. “Some of us are still affected by
unreasonably low temperatures. You really should be more considerate of those
less inhumanly sturdy than yourself.”
Shizuo frowns. “I’m cold too.” He kicks against Izaya’s foot, aiming for gentle
force but landing harder than he intends. Izaya still doesn’t move. “You’re the
one who decided to walk over here without a jacket.”
“I don’t like any of mine.” Izaya pulls his feet back to give ground for
Shizuo’s legs. Shizuo sighs satisfaction and stretches out into the space; and
Izaya kicks his feet right back out, letting his heels drop hard against the
tops of Shizuo’s knees. “If I had a jacket I liked I’d wear it all the time.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes. “That’s a stupid reason.” He reaches down to grab at
Izaya’s ankles and shift them sideways by an inch, just enough to free his
knees from the uncomfortable ache of pressure against them before he lets
Izaya’s legs remain where they are. It’s still not completely comfortable -
- Izaya’s feet against his legs are like ice even through the layers of
clothing between them -- but Izaya just curls his toes in against the support
of Shizuo’s body and Shizuo doesn’t try to push him away. “You could have taken
it off as soon as you got here and you wouldn’t have shown up half-frozen.”
“I’m warming up.” Izaya looks up at Shizuo and flutters his lashes into
overstated gratitude. “Thanks to my devoted senpai nursing me back from the
brink of hypothermia.”
Shizuo frowns at him. “Next time I’ll shut the door in your face and leave you
to freeze.” He reaches out for Izaya’s cup of tea to push it closer towards the
other boy before drawing his own in towards himself and attempting a sip. It
burns pleasant heat against the back of his throat and down into his chest as
he swallows; he can feel the knot of frustrated worry in him easing with the
warmth, undoing itself into languid comfort instead of the harsh edge of
concern that first met Izaya’s shivering arrival. Shizuo looks down at the
liquid in his cup, feels the ache of lingering worry pressing against his
breathing, and when he speaks it’s far more gently, soft and low enough to
carry all his pent-up concern from the last months of high-anxiety friendship.
“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep being so reckless all the time.”
“You’re right,” Izaya says, sounding so completely calm that for a moment
Shizuo thinks he’s serious and looks up and across the table in surprise at
what sounds like surrender. But Izaya’s still grinning, his mouth still caught
on that unvoiced laugh, and his eyes are dark against Shizuo’s hand and the
bandage holding immobile fingers bruised in one of those rare fights. “I should
really strive to be more calm and composed like you, senpai.”
All Shizuo’s calm evaporates like a blown-out candle, anger hissing itself to
action in his veins. His fingers tense, his knuckles aching at the force, and
it takes a conscious effort of will to breathe past the weight of fury
threatening his composure, takes as much strength as he has to make his hand
ease out of its first impulsive tension.
“Go to hell,” he sighs, while Izaya’s still grinning at his bandaged hand like
poking Shizuo to anger is a source of entertainment instead of the equivalent
of playing with nitroglycerin and lit matches. “I’m trying to help you. Why do
you always insist on being such a pain?”
“It’s my nature,” Izaya smiles, and turns his foot to force uncomfortable
pressure against Shizuo’s leg. Shizuo flinches from the hurt but Izaya’s grin
just pulls the wider, like he’s toying with a laugh in the back of his throat
as he lifts his cup of tea to his lips. “Do you usually demonstrate your
concern by threatening to lock someone out of your home?”
“Only with you.” Shizuo shifts his legs free of the sharp-edged weight of
Izaya’s, letting the other’s feet drop to the floor so he can kick his own atop
them and pin the chill of Izaya’s body between the warmth of his own legs and
the heater for the kotatsu. Izaya smiles into the steam of his tea, and ducks
his head over his cup, and for a minute there is just quiet in the room, even
Izaya’s usual incessant need to disrupt Shizuo’s comfort apparently given over
for the sake of momentary peace. Shizuo is left to watch Izaya from across the
width of the kotatsu, to see the way the steam from his tea catches damp
against the dark weight of his lashes and flushes his cheeks into pink warmth.
Izaya’s mouth is soft for once, absent the drag of speech over his tongue or
the ever-ready cut of a smile; Shizuo can see the distance between his barely-
parted lips, can see the heat of the room coloring them darker than he’s ever
noticed them before. There’s a weird weight in his chest, electricity tensing
across his shoulders and along his spine in spite of Izaya’s unusual quiet;
finally Shizuo looks down and away from the other boy to stare fixedly at his
tea as he clears his throat into speech to break the strangely tense silence.
“Did you do anything crazy for Christmas?” Izaya looks up at him but Shizuo
doesn’t meet the dark of the other’s eyes; he reaches for irritation instead,
inventing the most dangerous pursuits he can imagine as suggestions for what
Izaya has been getting up to without supervision. “Bet your life on a poker
game, or take over a color gang, or something?”
“Please, senpai,” Izaya says, dragging the words high and injured as if Shizuo
has offended him. “I’m a first year.” Shizuo glances up but Izaya’s not looking
at him; he’s taking a sip from his tea, his expression relaxed into the very
picture of innocence. Shizuo’s never seen anything so suspicious in all his
life. Izaya swallows his tea, sets his cup back down, sighs a breath. “I’m
going to wait to take over a color gang until high school at least.”
Shizuo huffs exasperation. “Don’t joke about that,” he snaps, and Izaya grins
at him like he’s won something by drawing irritation from the other. “What did
you do for Christmas?”
“Nothing.” Shizuo narrows his eyes but Izaya just holds his gaze, raising his
eyebrows and letting his smile pull wider as if to prove his point. “I’m not
always getting into trouble, you know.” Shizuo wants to protest this as an
absurd lie, but Izaya is tipping his head down and fluttering his lashes in a
way that stalls all of Shizuo’s protest to silence. “Besides, isn’t Christmas
for young lovers?” He dissolves into a laugh, the familiarity of the sound
enough to ease Shizuo’s unusual tension, and draws his cup back in to cradle
between his palms. “I just stayed home with my sisters.”
“And ate cup ramen for dinner?” Shizuo asks. “You’re going to starve if that’s
all you ever eat.” Shizuo looks down at his teacup, frowning into the liquid
like it can push away the too-clear image of Izaya and his sisters alone in the
cold emptiness of their house, with nothing but a nearly-empty kitchen to keep
them company through what is meant to be a celebration. “You should have
brought them over here, at least then you’d get a real meal.”
“Aww,” Izaya purrs. “Were you lonely on Christmas Eve, senpai?” Shizuo’s head
snaps up, his expression darkening like a storm is settling itself into his
veins, but Izaya doesn’t so much as bat an eye at the glare Shizuo fixes him
with. “You can’t expect normal humans to want to spend time with a monster like
you.” Izaya’s head tips, his smile pulls sideways against his mouth. “What girl
would want to go out with someone who could crush her as soon as she irritated
him?”
“You’re here,” Shizuo says before he can think, before he can follow through
the implications of that particular statement. He catches up a moment after he
speaks, feels another shiver run down his spine, but Izaya appears unfazed, is
responding with an easy “I’m not normal,” before Shizuo has a chance to flush
into self-consciousness.
Shizuo huffs and ducks his chin so his hair falls in front of his face to half-
cover his expression before he looks back up to watch Izaya’s face.
“Seriously,” he says, as gently as he knows how. “Just come over next time.”
Izaya hums and takes another sip of his tea. “If I’m not busy.”
Inspiration strikes with another rush of electricity, thrumming all the way
down Shizuo’s spine to tremble tp heat under his skin more radiant than the
comfort of the kotatsu. “What about New Year’s?” Izaya’s eyes flicker wide for
a moment, surprise clear across his face, and Shizuo keeps talking while the
other stares shock at him. “Are you busy then?”
Izaya takes a moment before he responds. Shizuo can see his fingers tensing
against the sides of his cup, can see the strain of some half-formed anxiety
writing itself in the angle of Izaya’s wrists and the white at his knuckles
even if his expression remains absolutely, unreadably blank.
“New Year’s is a family holiday,” he says, finally, attempting his usual
lilting almost-laughter only for it to collapse to a tremor against his lips.
“You’re supposed to spend it at home, with your parents.”
Shizuo doesn’t point out the obvious. He’s sure Izaya knows better than he does
how still the Orihara house is, how likely it is to remain empty and quiet and
cold over the next few days of the holiday. He just keeps watching Izaya’s
face, keeps his voice as level and steady as he can as he repeats, “What about
New Year’s?”
Izaya stares at him in silence for a moment. Shizuo can see the breath he
takes, can see the way it catches at the other’s lips as his fingers ease
against the sides of his teacup, as his shoulders relax out of the momentary
tension of uncertainty. And then Izaya’s mouth curves, his lips turning up at
the corners into a smile that is softer than anything Shizuo’s ever seen on his
face before, that lights his eyes up into oddly shy warmth as it strips away
all the tension of insincerity from his expression for a moment. Shizuo is left
breathless, speechless, all the blood in his veins going to heat that has
nothing to do with the familiar burn of anger; for a moment all he can see is
the soft of Izaya’s lashes against the vivid color of his eyes, the damp of the
tea still clinging to the other’s mouth as he smiles that strange, shaky smile,
the saturated dark of his hair spilling like ink against the pale of his skin.
“I couldn’t leave you to suffer alone, senpai,” Izaya is saying, but Shizuo
barely hears him for the thunder of his heart pounding in his chest, for the
rush of warmth in his body that Izaya must be able to feel glowing like the sun
against his slow-warming feet.
“Good,” Shizuo manages, habit steering him through the motions of conversation
while his thoughts reel themselves into a new order, into a new logic in his
mind. “I’ll tell my mom.”
He barely hears the words on his lips for the epiphany of infatuation still
echoing through him.
***** Aware *****
It’s distracting to have Izaya around.
Nothing has changed, really. Shizuo tells himself that, repeats it over and
over again for the hours he spends waiting for Izaya’s arrival with steadily
increasing tension along his spine and odd adrenaline collecting in his
stomach. There’s nothing different between them, nothing but the same familiar
shape of friendship they’ve formed over the last few months of the school year;
Shizuo’s own personal realization should have no effect on their interaction at
all. The fact that he thinks it’s maybe not a new feeling, that he feels more
like he’s seen something that was there all along instead of stumbling into a
completely novel emotion, is just further proof that nothing is different; if
they have been friends in spite of Shizuo more-than-platonic feelings before
now, there’s no reason they can’t continue on as they have been with the simple
addition of Shizuo’s improved understanding of his own perspective. Nothing has
changed; but everything has changed, Shizuo can feel the awareness creeping
under his skin like an itch he can’t scratch, and when there’s a knock on the
door five minutes before time the way his stomach plummets over a cliff of
nerves just proves the fact. Izaya has brought his sisters with him, as
suggested, and that’s almost all Shizuo can tell of the other, because he can
hardly stand to look at Izaya without feeling like his whole self is glowing
with self-conscious obviousness of his own feelings. His heartbeat won’t slow,
his cheeks won’t cool, and when Izaya laughs and bumps an elbow against
Shizuo’s side it takes everything Shizuo has not to flinch bodily away from the
electrical shock that runs through him at the contact.
It’s ridiculous. They’ve spoken before, they’ve touched before, for far longer
and with far more casual intimacy; Shizuo’s never had any problems dealing with
Izaya before now, either with the shrill skid of his voice or the sharp edges
of his movements when they bump together. But now he feels like he’s been set
alight, like his every movement is drawn deliberate and awkward with self-
consciousness, until even the simple process of fitting everyone around the
kotatsu becomes an exercise in overthinking. Kasuka sits down first, taking the
far side of the table with the calm confidence he exudes as easily as
breathing; and normally Shizuo would take another side for himself, but there
are five of them with the addition of the Oriharas, and the television in the
corner makes one side of the kotatsu off-limits completely, and suddenly
sitting on the empty side feels like a painfully obvious ploy to share with
Izaya. Shizuo can’t think straight, can’t pull himself through the logic of
rational thought; and then Kasuka says, “Aren’t you going to sit down?” and
Shizuo does, taking the empty side opposite the television in the first
stuttering rush of panic. Izaya’s sisters are still taking off their shoes in
the entryway, not even in sight of making a claim to the kotatsu yet; but Izaya
sits down next to Shizuo without even hesitating, tipping in hard to push his
shoulder against the other boy’s as he says, “Move over, senpai,” with casual
unconcern on the words. Shizuo moves, his heart pounding too hard to allow him
even the option to do anything else, and then Izaya’s pressing in close against
him, kicking a foot out to rest his ankle over Shizuo’s with a complete lack of
the self-consciousness that is locking Shizuo to breathless strain where he
sits. Then the twins come in, and Izaya turns to say something to them, and
Shizuo takes the moment of distraction to reach for the television remote and
turn on the screen just for the sake of something else to look at. By the time
Mairu and Kururi are settled with the mandarins Kasuka peeled for them and
Izaya is leaning over the table to prop his chin against his hand Shizuo has
remembered the basic principle of breathing, even if he hasn’t yet reacquired
an ordinary rhythm for his inhales.
It’s the longest night Shizuo’s ever experienced. Even when he’s attained some
ability to communicate more or less normally after hours have numbed his first
jittery reaction to Izaya’s presence, his pulse still refuses to ease, his
breathing never quite loses the first panicked edge it had. Izaya is too close,
too prone to shifting to lean against Shizuo’s shoulder or kick at his ankle
whenever Shizuo starts to get comfortable in a given position, until by the
time they are waiting through the last hour of the old year Shizuo is more
exhausted by the sustained tension in him than by the lateness of the hour. He
wants Izaya gone, wants Izaya closer; there’s some smell catching in the air,
some odd richness that Shizuo can’t quite place before it flickers away and is
gone. He thinks it might be Izaya’s hair, might be some spiciness from his
shampoo or the aroma of soap clinging to the warmth of his skin; but he can’t
catch it free from the air, can’t figure out where or what it is with the
distraction of his racing heart pulling his attention away. Finally he gives up
on trying to identify it, gives up on even the awkward attempt at conversation
he’s been trying, and fixes his gaze entirely on the flickering light of the
television so he can indulge his attention instead in how warm Izaya’s leg is
pressed against his, in how the other boy shifts occasionally to lean against
Shizuo’s shoulder as he adjusts into a more comfortable position. Mairu and
Kururi are long since asleep, drowsing turned in towards each other as if
they’re in bed instead of under the kotatsu at Shizuo’s home, and if Kasuka’s
not asleep it’s not for lack of trying; Shizuo hasn’t seen him more than blink
in almost an hour, since the last show to call in the new year started playing
on the screen. But Izaya is awake, still as talkative now as he was when he
arrived; Shizuo can barely pay attention to what he’s being teased about now,
keeps losing the meaning of Izaya’s words for the almost-whisper soft of the
other’s voice around the syllables.
“I was kidding about the karaoke club,” he’s saying now, murmuring the words
with so much laughter under them that Shizuo doesn’t dare look at him to see
the shadows under the expression Izaya is offering. “You actually would have
really liked it, wouldn’t you?” There’s a force against Shizuo’s side, the
weight of Izaya leaning in hard to press his elbow low under the other’s ribs,
and Shizuo pushes at his arm without thinking, shoving the other boy away
before Izaya notices the way Shizuo goes tense with self-consciousness, before
he hears the way Shizuo’s breath catches to strain in his throat. Izaya topples
to the floor, falling so fast Shizuo flinches at the inadvertent force he used;
but Izaya’s laughing, his voice spilling bright as he braces a hand at the
floor to push himself up again. “You’re seriously uncool, Shizuo-senpai.”
Shizuo can feel himself blushing, self-consciousness spilling hot across his
cheeks in answer to the curl of the smile at Izaya’s mouth and the dark of his
eyes in the dim illumination from the television. “Shut up,” he says, a weak
response even among the few protests he could make; Izaya’s smile is pulling
Shizuo’s attention to his mouth, the brace of his arm is drawing Shizuo’s gaze
to the sharp angle of his wrist, and Shizuo can’t make himself look away. “I’m
trying to watch the show.”
Izaya’s lashes flutter, his chin dips down until he’s looking up at Shizuo
through the dark curtain of his hair. “The show’s boring,” he says, drawling
over the words with as much appreciation as if they’re syrup on his tongue.
“It’s almost over anyway.”
“Let me finish it, then,” Shizuo insists. Izaya laughs, his expression
collapsing into a giggle of sound brighter by far than the glow of the
television, and Shizuo looks away fast, before he can lose his focus to the
shift of Izaya’s lashes again. He can still feel his cheeks heat with
adrenaline, can feel his whole body tense on awareness of Izaya’s gaze on him;
but he doesn’t look back, and Izaya doesn’t speak again. After a moment he
shifts instead, leaning forward over the top of the kotatsu so he can rest his
head on his arm like he’s going to sleep, and Shizuo can feel some of the
strain in him ease with the absence of Izaya’s attention. The television is
still on, the show still working through the last few verses of the performer’s
song, but Shizuo’s barely hearing them for the soft sound of Izaya breathing
next to him. They’re still pressed close together, Izaya’s hip flush with
Shizuo’s and the whole length of his leg warm against the other’s; Shizuo can
feel Izaya shift as he settles himself against the support of the table, as he
turns his head down to press his forehead against his arm. The room is very
still, filled with the low murmur of the television as backdrop for the sound
of the twins’ sleep-deep breathing and the occasional shift of a foot under the
kotatsu; when Shizuo glances sideways even Kasuka has his eyes shut, looks to
be dozing towards sleep to carry him over into the new year. The girls are
asleep, Kasuka is dozing, Izaya’s tipped forward over the table, and in the
peace of the fading year Shizuo takes a breath and lets himself look at Izaya
next to him for a long span of seconds.
There’s not that much to see. Izaya’s face is turned down against the support
of his arm, his shoulders are hunched in over the edge of the table; mostly
Shizuo can see the dark of his shirt across his shoulders, maybe the angle of
his wrist over the surface of the kotatsu if he looks. But Izaya’s hair is
falling forward to cover his face, the dark of it still clinging to that faint
whisper of scent Shizuo can catch if he reaches for it, and when Izaya shifts a
lock slides forward and off the back of his neck. Shizuo can see the press of
bone against skin in the gap between Izaya’s hair and the top of his shirt, can
see the curve of vertebrae pressing against the back of his neck from the way
his head is bowed, and for a long moment he just stares at the shadows clinging
to Izaya’s skin, thinks about how soft the other’s hair would feel if he
reached out and slid his fingers in against it. Then there’s a flicker of
light, the illumination from the television shifting as the screen changes to a
different display, and Shizuo blinks and looks away from Izaya to the display
of numbers flashing to clarity on the screen.
There’s a minute left in the year, the seconds ticking away even as he looks;
beside him Kasuka has surrendered to the weight of sleep against the table, his
expression gone slack with unconsciousness as he balances against the support
of his hand. The twins are sound asleep on the floor, and Shizuo can hear his
parents talking in low voices in the other room; and that just leaves Izaya,
with his head turned down against the table and so still Shizuo wonders if he
hasn’t fallen asleep the same as Kasuka. Shizuo hesitates for a moment,
uncertain about what to do; and then he decides himself, and says, “Izaya-kun,”
as gently as he can manage, softly enough to not disturb the twins or Kasuka’s
precarious rest. Izaya’s shoulders are hunched over the table; Shizuo reaches
out, hesitating for a moment of shivery self-consciousness before letting his
fingertips alight against the sharp edge of shoulderblade under Izaya’s shirt.
“Hey, Izaya, wake up.”
“I’m not asleep,” Izaya says, his voice muffled against the table as he rubs
his sleeve over his face and lifts his head to blink at Shizuo. “What do you
want?”
Izaya’s eyes are shadowed, his hair tangling across his forehead and his mouth
soft on the start of a frown; Shizuo can only stand to look at him for a moment
before the adrenaline tense along his spine pulls his attention away to watch
the far safer flicker of the television’s countdown. “Look,” he says, all but
whispering like he’ll chase away the new year if he speaks too loudly. “It’s
almost time.”
There’s a breathless pause, the countdown on the screen measuring out seconds
with a consistency that Shizuo can’t understand with his heart beating as hard
as it is. His hand is still weighting against Izaya’s shoulder; when Shizuo
glances back Izaya is staring at the television, his eyes wide and mouth still
caught on that frown as oddly soft as if he’s frightened of the approach of the
arbitrary shift from one year to the next. The countdown is still happening,
the digits flickering themselves to zeros in Shizuo’s periphery; but he doesn’t
look away to the screen, keeps watching Izaya’s expression instead as if the
anticipation rushing through his veins will be eased by the other boy’s face.
Izaya’s shoulders tense, he blinks hard like he’s bracing for something; and
then the television crackles into sound, excitement made staticky through
turned-low speakers, and Shizuo presses his fingers into deliberate weight
against Izaya’s shoulder as the other boy takes a breath and sighs through some
of his tension.
“Happy New Year,” Shizuo says, still watching Izaya’s face instead of the
screen or the shift of Kasuka coming back to awareness on the other side of the
kotatsu. Izaya looks back at him, his eyes wide and mouth soft; for a moment
Shizuo can see the dark of the other’s lashes heavy in the illumination of the
room, can see an odd uncertainty behind Izaya’s eyes like he’s never seen
before. It’s still there when Izaya swallows hard before opening his mouth to
say “Happy New Year,” as if he’s echoing the words back from Shizuo’s lips more
than giving them voice himself.
Shizuo’s heart is still beating fast in his chest, his fingers are still
trembling with barely-restrained tension at Izaya’s shoulder. But for just a
moment, the adrenaline in him shivers into the warmth of happiness instead of
the strain of near-panic.
It feels like a good omen for the new year.
***** Possibility *****
Kasuka makes good company for Shizuo through the morning hours of saving a spot
under the cherry trees. It’s been their responsibility for years to make the
trek out in the early hours of the morning to spread a blanket under the trees
and wait out the time until their parents arrive with the food to carry them
through the rest of the day, and Kasuka is always easy to comfortably exist
with for the span of a few hours. First thing in the morning is one of Shizuo’s
favorite times, when the city is still quiet in the early effort of waking and
the air is crisp enough to earn the beginnings of a shiver along his spine if
he holds still too long; the milk Kasuka buys for him from the convenience
store doesn’t help with the chill, but the sweet of it tastes good enough that
Shizuo doesn’t mind the mild discomfort that comes with the temperature.
Besides, the sun is rising higher in the sky, warming even the springtime chill
off the air into something more comfortable for the rest of the day, and in the
calm quiet that comes with Kasuka’s presence Shizuo can start to drift into a
nap against the blanket as the best way to wait out the time still remaining
until their parents meet them. He can hear Kasuka shift next to him, settling
into a more comfortable position against the blanket; and then, clear and
without any kind of a lead-in at all, “You should have invited Orihara-san to
come with us.”
Shizuo’s attention snaps back into clarity in the gap between one breath and
the next. He had been on the verge of sleep, or at least some kind of deeply
immersive daydream; but he jerks into full alertness all at once, even half-
sitting up from his reclined position over the blanket before he can get a
handle on the sudden surge of adrenaline that hits him. His heart is pounding
unreasonably fast, his skin prickling as if just the mention of Izaya’s name is
enough to spark electricity out through his veins, and when he speaks to say
“What?” his voice wobbles over itself in the back of his throat to undo his
attempt at a casual tone before he’s even formed it. “Why?”
Kasuka turns his head to consider Shizuo with absolute calm. There’s no trace
of surprise in his features, not even the sparkle of amusement behind his eyes;
Shizuo isn’t even completely sure that his telltale jerky response registered
as anything out of the ordinary to Kasuka.
“His parents don’t go cherry blossom viewing, do they?” The flat of Kasuka’s
voice makes the question more a statement than an inquiry. “His sisters would
probably have fun coming out here. And mom is always saying they should come
over more often so she can feed them.” Kasuka stretches his legs out in front
of him, turns his head to consider the angle of his feet as if they are of far
more interest than Shizuo’s fixed attention. “You’re always talking about
Orihara-san. I thought you would have invited him already.”
Shizuo’s cheeks are flushing hot, self-consciousness is prickling electric all
across his skin. “No,” he manages, but his voice manages to strain even on that
one word, turning the simple negation into a growl of denial in his throat. “I
don’t do everything with Izaya-kun.”
Kasuka shrugs, as nonchalant about Shizuo’s embarrassed frustration as he seems
to be about the subject in general. “It’s fine,” he says, shifting to cross his
legs so he can sit up straighter and look out over the pale pink of the trees
lining the gentle dips of the hills in front of them. “I was just wondering.”
“Well I didn’t,” Shizuo says, ducking his head so his hair falls to shadow over
his face and grant him a moment to let his cheeks cool from what feels like a
crimson glow of embarrassment. He reaches out past the edge of the blanket,
catches his fingers at the grass under them and tugs sharp so the blades break
off against the grip of his fingers. When he clears his throat it’s without
looking up from the grass, while keeping his gaze studiously focused on the
unthinking tug of his hand. “Do you think I should have?”
“Maybe,” Kasuka says, sounding so utterly detached from the conversation that
Shizuo wouldn’t even think he was listening except that he’s responding, which
is as invested as Kasuka ever becomes in dialogue. “You seem happier when he’s
around.”
“I’m not,” Shizuo denies, but he can feel his shoulders hunching up around his
ears as if he can hide behind them, as if he can curve his spine and make a
wall between Kasuka’s too-apt observations and the near-painful warmth that
fills his chest every time he hears Izaya’s name, now. “He’s a brat. If he came
I’d spend all my time worrying about him.”
“Don’t you worry about him all the time anyway?” Kasuka asks, and then, before
Shizuo can find the right way to deny this particular claim, “What are you
going to do when you graduate next year?” with the same off-hand delivery that
he offered for weight of his first question.
Shizuo can feel the words hit as if they’re blows. He’s been trying to avoid
this particular subject, has managed to ignore the thought almost entirely but
for the brief, uncomfortable reminders that come with the excitement of the
graduating third-years at school and the regular announcements for the upcoming
ceremony that goes hand-in-hand with the pink of the blossoms clinging to the
trees overhead.
“Nothing,” he says, ducking his head to stare fixedly at the grass under his
hands as if that will somehow ease the weight of stress that always hits him
when he thinks even briefly about high school, about the pressure of the exams
and the inevitable awkwardness of a new school and Izaya alone, Izaya without
anyone to catch him off the edge of windowsills or hold him back from climbing
too-precarious heights. Even in distant hypotheticals it aches, pressing
unhappiness tight against Shizuo’s ribcage until it’s hard to breathe, until
his voice is rough in his throat when he speaks. “Go to high school.”
“Yeah,” Kasuka agrees, sounding like he’s thinking about something else
entirely. When Shizuo glances sideways at him he’s looking up at the sky
overhead, his head tipped back so he can blink half-focused attention up at the
blue. He looks calm, comfortable, peaceful in a way Shizuo has never even been
able to imagine feeling, and for the briefest of moments Shizuo can feel the
sting of envy in the back of his thoughts, can feel longing framed out by his
heartbeat for that freedom in Kasuka’s expression, for some measure of that
unconcern that so characterizes his brother’s life. It would be so much easier,
Shizuo is sure, so much simpler without his unnatural strength, and without the
worry that comes with being friends with Orihara Izaya, and definitely without
the electrical spark of adrenaline that hits him whenever he so much as
considers his best friend’s face. It would be simpler, would be more
comfortable, would be better; and then Kasuka continues, “Are you and Orihara-
san going to go to the same high school?” and Shizuo’s growing melancholy
flickers out to the sunbright flash of possibility that opens itself to him.
“What?” he says, and then “Oh,” as the idea presents itself in full in his head
without any additional needed clarification. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought
about it.”
“You could,” Kasuka says, and then he falls utterly silent again, lapsing into
quiet consideration of the flowers overhead as if he’s suddenly taken the
entire goal of the outing to heart. Shizuo is left staring at Kasuka’s back,
his gaze fixed but unseeing, because he’s thinking about high school, now, is
imagining the bright of Izaya’s smile in front of some as-yet-unknown school
gate and the fit of a high school uniform across the other’s skinny shoulders
and the glow of two more years together stretching out in front of them. Shizuo
can only think of it for a moment -- the idea is too far off, has too many
uncertainties under it for him to even contemplate yet -- but when he blinks
his vision back into focus the world seems a little bit softer, the air seems a
little bit clearer. It’s not until he sighs an exhale that he realizes he’s
smiling, that the glow of his imagination has knocked his expression to warmth
as well, and then he has to focus on composing his features back to more
ordinary boredom before their parents arrive to comment on it.
He wonders if Kasuka knows how grateful he is for the possibility.
***** Anticipate *****
Izaya catches up with Shizuo just as they’re leaving the gym after the
graduation ceremony. They ended up on opposite sides of the space, the
distinction in their years turned into a gap of physical distance for the
duration of the ceremony, and Shizuo would have minded except that he thinks he
wouldn’t have been able to pay even minimal attention to the graduating third-
years if he had had Izaya close enough to touch the entire time. Even as it was
he found his attention wandering to the dark head two sections over and a row
ahead of him more than it stayed focused on the stage or the speeches and kept
having to drag his focus back to the event by force. Izaya looked back at him
once in the middle of the ceremony, glancing back as if he could feel Shizuo’s
eyes on him and was answering the call of his name; Shizuo had looked away in a
rush, but it wasn’t fast enough to save him from seeing the flash of Izaya’s
grin as he felt his cheeks start to warm into embarrassment. He kept his gaze
firmly on the stage after that, self-consciousness a strong enough force to do
what sheer force of will couldn’t, and by the time the ceremony is finishing
Shizuo thinks he might even be ready to handle whatever teasing Izaya is going
to throw at him. His shoulders are tense on expectation, his skin prickling
with strain; but “Thank god that’s over,” is all Izaya says, sighing the words
as he settles into pace with Shizuo. “Graduations are always so tedious.”
“Don’t be rude,” Shizuo tells him, and leans in to bump his elbow hard against
Izaya’s arm. His heart skids in his chest at the contact but Izaya doesn’t even
glance at him. “It’s a big deal for the third-years.”
Izaya shrugs. “I don’t care about any of them. Everyone is so stiff and formal
about it. It’s not like it really matters anyway.”
Shizuo frowns at Izaya’s profile, feeling his heart constrict around the same
anxiety that has been building in him for the last few weeks. “It matters to
them,” he says. “Don’t you have any sympathy in you at all?”
“Hm.” Izaya lifts his head to squint thoughtfully at the sky, like he’s
checking inside himself for any trace of emotion. “I don’t think so.”
Shizuo huffs. “Of course you don’t.” His shoulders tip forward, his back
curving as if to protect himself as the weight of disappointment settles over
him again. When he speaks the words are bitter on his tongue, truth made sour
by the unhappiness it brings. “You won’t care until you’re the one walking
across the stage, will you?”
“Maybe not even then,” Izaya says, his voice lilting daydream-soft in his
throat, and Shizuo didn’t intend to look at him but he can’t resist the
temptation. When he tips his head to glance sideways Izaya is still looking up,
his attention lingering against the cherry blossoms overhead like he’s
forgotten to keep the usual sharp edges of his expression in place. His mouth
has gone soft with lack of focus; Shizuo can see the shift of the other’s lips
as Izaya starts a half-formed smile at some idea. “Maybe I just won’t show up.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Shizuo says, his voice coming out rougher than he intends on
the heat in his throat. “You can’t miss your own graduation.”
Izaya’s laugh is sharp and so sudden it makes Shizuo jump. “Says who?” he wants
to know, and then he’s moving, skipping ahead and away before Shizuo can think
to grab at his sleeve and hold him still. It’s only by a few steps; then he
turns on his heel, swinging back around as if he’s making a grand reveal of the
smile clinging to his lips, as if he’s framed by some camera lens capturing him
for an audience beyond Shizuo’s constant attention. For just a moment he looks
like he’s part of a picture, like the school gate over his shoulder is a frame
for the dark of his jacket and the pale of the flowers overhead; Shizuo can
feel his heart skid out on a beat, can feel his breathing catch hard in his
throat at the shadows of Izaya’s stare and the tension of the smile at his
mouth.
“Don’t worry, Shizuo-senpai,” Izaya purrs, his lashes dipping heavy over his
eyes as his voice draws his words into suggestion Shizuo can feel run straight
through him like lightning. His smile is lopsided, the curve of it as much a
temptation as the sound of his voice. “I’ll definitely be at your graduation.”
Shizuo can feel himself go crimson, can feel the burn of embarrassment flare
all under his skin like a flame. “Shut up,” he says, stepping forward to reach
out for Izaya’s arm and turn the other boy around so Shizuo can stop staring at
his mouth. “That’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Isn’t it?” Izaya asks, his voice veering so close to a laugh that Shizuo’s
fingers tense without thought, self-consciousness writing itself to strain in
his hold. “You don’t need to fret, senpai, your cute kouhai will be in the
audience to cry appropriately at being abandoned.”
There’s an odd note in his voice on the last word, something Shizuo can’t make
sense of at all; he glances back to Izaya’s face, just for a moment, long
enough to see the weight of laughter still at the other’s mouth juxtaposed
against the focus behind the dark of his eyes. “You wouldn’t,” Shizuo says as
he looks away, still trying to pin down the emotion in the other’s expression.
“You won’t be abandoned, anyway.”
“I’m hurt,” Izaya says, slowing his steps until Shizuo’s hold on his arm is
pulling him forward more than his own action. “You’re going to leave me all
alone and you won’t even take responsibility for the trauma you’ll cause me?”
That weight is still under his voice, that odd shadow of sound like he’s saying
something completely different, like there’s some burden his words are carrying
other than the obvious. Shizuo looks back to Izaya’s face again, his forehead
creasing on confusion; Izaya’s stumbling in his wake, his arm caught hard in
Shizuo’s grip and his smile flickering like he’s having trouble holding to it.
“It won’t be trauma,” Shizuo says, but he’s paying more attention to his hold
than his words, undoing the tension in his fingers until he feels like he’s
barely touching Izaya at all, like he’s catching the fragility of the other’s
arm in a cage of his fingers instead of actually pressing any weight against
the other’s skin. “You’ll be fine without me.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Izaya says, his voice breaking over assumed
emotion and his eyes dark with sincerity. “If it’s easier for my senpai to
forget about his pining kouhai, I understand. I only want what’s best for you
after all.”
“Oh my god,” Shizuo groans, feeling his cheeks burn flame-hot on embarrassment
as he lets Izaya’s arm go entirely so he can go through the motions of trying
to hit him. “Shut up.” Izaya dodges as if going through the steps of a dance,
ducking under Shizuo’s arm to press in closer against him, and for just a
minute he’s flush against Shizuo’s side, looking up at him with that odd
softness in his eyes and his smile still warm against his mouth.
“Whatever you say,” he purrs, and Shizuo has to laugh; adrenaline is too
fizzing-hot all through him for any other reaction. He grabs at Izaya’s
shoulder with the same gentleness he managed to attain for his hold against the
other’s arm, his fingers settling around Izaya’s shoulders for just a moment
before Shizuo braces himself to pull the other away.
“Get off me,” he says, but the words go so soft on affection in his throat he’s
sure Izaya will notice, sure he’ll get himself some kind of a comment. But
Izaya doesn’t raise an eyebrow, doesn’t crackle a laugh; he just steps back in
over the minimal distance to press himself close against Shizuo’s arm as if
he’s feeling the magnetic draw between them as strongly as Shizuo is.
“It’s all in the future anyway,” Izaya says. His sleeve is catching against
Shizuo’s as they move; if Shizuo turned his head in he could press his nose
against Izaya’s hair, could breathe in the not-quite-sweet that clings to all
the edges of the other boy. “Who knows, maybe you’ll fail your classes and be
held back with me another year.”
“I hope not,” Shizuo says, more for the appearance of protest than the fact of
it. Izaya laughs bright, tipping his head to gaze shadows at Shizuo, and Shizuo
reaches out in a surge of bravery to ruffle his fingers into the soft of
Izaya’s hair under the pretense of pushing him away. Izaya stumbles sideways,
still laughing as he catches his balance and comes back in, and Shizuo doesn’t
try to hold back the smile at his lips as they fall back into step together.
With Izaya this close, Shizuo can almost taste electricity in the air.
***** Trust *****
“I’ve been thinking,” Izaya says from Shizuo’s elbow. “And I’ve decided. You
need to bleach your hair, Shizuo-senpai.”
Shizuo cuts his gaze sideways, feeling his forehead creasing into the confusion
that is always so common when Izaya’s around. “What?” he asks. “What are you
talking about?”
“It’s not that complicated,” Izaya declares. He’s wandering away, his steps
taking him out of range of Shizuo’s reach as he gravitates towards one of the
low walls running through the middle of the park. Shizuo follows, trailing in
Izaya’s wake as the other boy skips up onto the edge of the wall without any
apparent effort in the motion, as if he’s gone momentarily weightless to
achieve the action. “Surely you don’t think all those delinquents are natural
blonds, do you?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, stepping in closer to the wall as Izaya pivots on
one foot with alarming unconcern for his precarious balance. “You bleach your
hair, if you like the idea so much.”
“I’m serious,” Izaya tells him, his mouth pulling on a smile that says he’s
not. “You can’t just go out into the world without some way to warn people.”
“I’m not going to warn anyone.” Shizuo frowns at the shift of Izaya’s feet
against the wall, at the pavement underneath that promises bruises and blood in
the event of a slip. “Get down before you fall.”
Izaya takes a half-step over the edge of the wall by way of response. When
Shizuo looks up to glare at him Izaya smirks down, his eyes dark in the shadow
of his hair.
“You have to,” he declares, reaching out to push his fingers into Shizuo’s hair
with a casual force that Shizuo can feel shudder heat all down his spine. “It’s
a public service, Shizuo-senpai, you have to look at least as dangerous as you
are. Otherwise strangers will think you’re just an ordinary middle schooler.”
Shizuo reaches up to push Izaya’s hand away before the other notices how
flushed his cheeks are. “I’m not bleaching my hair. School rules don’t allow
it.”
Izaya’s laugh is fever-bright, sparkling like glass in the clear air of the
park. “Like you care about school rules,” he purrs, his voice dipping to shadow
to match the dark of his lashes. “No one could make you obey them if you didn’t
want to.”
“I could get expelled,” Shizuo says. Izaya’s foot teeters against the edge of
the wall, his balance wobbling for a moment; Shizuo frowns at the motion, his
shoulders tensing in preemptive panic. “Seriously, get down.”
Izaya ignores him. “It wasn’t so bad when you were bruised all the time. You
hardly get into fights at all now, though.” He sounds nearly disappointed, as
if Shizuo is somehow letting him down by failing to engage in active
exhibitions of violence on a near-daily basis. “When was the last time you
broke a bone?”
“I don’t know,” Shizuo says rather than attempting to protest the basic
assumption of the question. “Last year?”
“Exactly.” Izaya shifts his feet and smiles down at Shizuo. “You look normal,
senpai, everyone will think you’re an ordinary human like this.” He spreads his
arms out at his sides, like he’s unfurling wings into the air that only he can
see; and then he lifts one foot off the wall, wobbling dangerously like he’s
thinking about toppling off the support entirely. Shizuo makes a sound,
something so raw on adrenaline he can’t even attempt to catch it back, and when
he reaches out to seize at Izaya’s ankle it’s with none of the deliberate care
he has been learning to use whenever he closes his fingers around the other’s
skin.
“Get down,” Shizuo grates, panic lacing his voice into a growl he could never
hit if he were aiming for it deliberately as he looks up to see Izaya gazing
down at him with a smile catching sharp at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not
going to to catch you if you fall.”
“You startled me,” Izaya says, his eyes shadowed to darkness and his smile
unflinching even though Shizuo can feel the other’s balance wobbling underneath
the too-tight hold he has on Izaya’s ankle. “If I did fall it would have been
your fault.”
“Fuck you,” Shizuo says, still feeling the tremor of panic running all through
him as if he’s seeing Izaya falling in front of him, as if there’s some crisis
still to be averted. When he reaches up it’s to grab at Izaya’s hip, to catch
his fingers tight against the top edge of the other boy’s jeans to steady him
in place. Izaya stumbles at the edge of the wall, his balance tipping forward
against the support of Shizuo’s chest, but Shizuo doesn’t move away and doesn’t
let him go. “Come down.”
Izaya tips his head down to gaze shadows at Shizuo, to flutter his eyelashes
and drag his lips around the shape of a purr. “Make me.”
Shizuo can feel laughter threatening in his chest, his panicked adrenaline
unfolding into a shimmer of amusement at this particular taunt. “Fine,” he
says, and steps backwards from the wall, letting Izaya’s ankle go to brace his
hand against the other’s waist instead. Izaya yelps an unformed sound of
surprise and reaches out to grab hard at Shizuo’s wrists, but Shizuo keeps
backing up to pull Izaya’s feet completely off the wall and take the other’s
weight against his chest and shoulder. Izaya wobbles precariously, tipping
backwards as he tries to lean away with nowhere to go, and when he reaches out
to save himself his fingers dig in hard against Shizuo’s shoulder, his touch
catching and dragging through the other’s hair as Shizuo settles his hold to
steadiness with an arm looping around Izaya’s waist. Izaya’s fingers slip down
to tense hard against the back of Shizuo’s neck, and Shizuo takes a breath
against the front of Izaya’s shirt, filling his lungs with shuddering heat that
he can feel spill down his spine like an electrical charge running off the
other’s skin. He can taste vanilla, can smell licorice, and Izaya is laughing
over him, demanding “Put me down,” with his fingers curling into Shizuo’s shirt
in a way that utterly undoes any motivation Shizuo might have had to let him
go. He swings his foot, scoring a glancing blow against Shizuo’s ribs, but
Shizuo just huffs an exhale and keeps his hold tight around Izaya’s waist.
“Senpai, put me down.”
“No,” Shizuo tells him, smiling helplessly even before he looks up to see the
way Izaya’s mouth is curving around the shape of his laugh and the way his eyes
are soft on amusement. Izaya reaches for his face, his fingers angling into the
outline of a threat, and Shizuo tips sideways so Izaya’s touch just slides into
his hair again. “You were going to fall.”
“I wasn’t.” Izaya pushes at Shizuo’s hair, kicks against him again, but it’s
not enough to even jar Shizuo’s hold, and besides he’s still laughing, still
forming the shape of his words around the spreading smile at his mouth, now.
“You made me fall.”
“Shut up or I’ll carry you back home,” Shizuo says, but even that is soft at
his lips, gentle on affection he can’t even attempt to restrain with Izaya warm
in his arms and the other’s fingers pressing against his scalp.
“Monster,” Izaya tells him, the word spilling to shadow in his throat until it
almost sounds more like an endearment than an insult. “You--”
“Orihara.”
It takes Shizuo a moment to realize the voice is referring to them, another to
pull his attention enough away from Izaya to actually look to see the face of
the speaker. It’s not hard to tell who it is, even if the face is wholly
unfamiliar to Shizuo’s eyes; the man is standing in the very center of the path
running through the park, facing them with a stance wide enough for Shizuo to
tense in instinctive expectation of the fight that always comes with an
approach like that. Izaya is twisting to look back, his weight shifting to rely
on Shizuo’s hold instead of pushing against it, but Shizuo doesn’t look up to
see the other’s expression; he’s focused on the darkness behind the flashing
white of the stranger’s smile, the bared-teeth grimace barely masquerading as
friendliness under the barrier of the sunglasses he’s wearing.
“Izumii-san,” Izaya says from over Shizuo’s head, and Shizuo realizes he’s
still holding the other off the ground and lets him go, slowly so Izaya has
time to slide to his feet instead of falling. Izaya turns as soon as his feet
touch the pavement, twisting away without looking at Shizuo as if the other has
become a part of the scenery now that his attention is centered on someone
else. “How charming to finally make your acquaintance. I’d been hoping we’d get
the chance someday soon.”
The stranger’s mouth stretches wider, his grin going so overtly threatening
Shizuo’s shoulders tense in instinctive response before he has thought through
his reaction at all. “You’re just a kid after all, aren’t you?” he says, and
steps forward to cut the distance between them by half. “Orihara Izaya. You’ve
got all the gangs in the city talking about you.”
“That’s wonderful,” Izaya purrs. He doesn’t look concerned at all; his
shoulders are relaxed, his stance off-balance as if he doesn’t see the threat
approaching, as if he’s somehow oblivious to the barely restrained violence
lurking underneath the hunch of the man’s shoulders and the cut of his smile.
“I love being the center of attention.”
The man’s grin twists sharper. “Cute,” he says, and Shizuo very nearly drags
Izaya back bodily from the threat dripping off the sound of the other’s voice.
But Izaya’s not moving, and not looking at him, and the stranger is coming
closer, stepping in so near Shizuo can see the individual locks of his hair
where they’re combed back from his forehead. Shizuo’s shoulders are tense, his
heart is pounding as adrenaline simmers just under the surface of his skin; but
the man isn’t looking at him at all, he’s staring at Izaya as if he hasn’t seen
Shizuo, as if he’s entirely ignoring the presence of what must look like just
another middle schooler to his eyes. “That why you been fucking around with my
boys?”
“Oh no,” Izaya says, and Shizuo’s spine prickles at the mania under the other’s
voice, at the bright, reckless edge in Izaya’s throat like he almost never
hears, anymore. “I’m been fucking around with yakuza. Your little gang is just
a side effect.”
“Little,” the man repeats, coughing the sound into a laugh too cold to bear
anything but danger on the sound. “Damn, kid, you’ve got some backbone. You
remind me of my kid brother.”
“Aww,” Izaya drawls. “How sweet.”
“Yeah.” The stranger drags his gaze over Izaya, as measuring as if his hands
are pressing against the other’s body, and Shizuo can feel his jaw set, can
feel fury surge into startling heat under his skin even before the other shrugs
overt dismissal. “I fucking hate my brother.”
“I feel bad for him,” Izaya says. “Having to deal with an idiot like you on a
daily basis must be terrible.”
“It’d be real nice to break your face,” the man says, his teeth bone white in
the sunlight. “I could pretend it’s his face I’m smashing into the pavement.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Izaya says, still sounding unconcerned, sounding more
entertained than anything else, as if he’s leaning into the danger,
anticipating the burst of violence instead of flinching from it. “If you don’t
think your brotherly love will get in the way.”
Shizuo can see intention twist all along the stranger’s arm, can see his
fingers curl into the heavy weight of a fist at his side. “Fuck you,” the man
says, and he lifts his hand for a swing, and--
“Hey,” a voice says, a growl rumbling into a vibration Shizuo doesn’t realize
is his until he feels it in his chest, and his feet move him forward, his hand
comes up without thought to catch at the stranger’s arm with unthinking speed.
His heart is pounding, his whole body is going hot with anticipation, and he
can feel his fingers flexing against the stranger’s arm, can feel the urge to
swing and settle his knuckles into the other’s face, to undo the knot of stress
at his spine with a sudden burst of the violence demanding expression from him.
His shoulders are steady, his whole being thrumming like he’s become an
electrical charge waiting to ground out at any sign of resistance; and the
stranger retreats, wrenching his arm free of Shizuo’s hold with startling
strength and taking a pair of steps backwards as his smile vanishes.
“Who the fuck are you?” he snaps. “Orihara and I were talking.”
“I’m Heiwajima Shizuo,” Shizuo’s voice says for him, and he can taste the
threat of that on his tongue, can feel the weight of his own name turned into
the fuse of a bomb somewhere inside his chest. “Who are you?”
“Heiwajima.” The stranger is staring at Shizuo, all the threat in his
expression stripped away to blank consideration. “You’re the one who--” He cuts
himself off, his head turning for a moment towards Izaya again, and Shizuo
nearly punches him before he parses the sideways glance as involuntary instead
of a threat. “It was you. You’re the ones who attacked my boys back last year.”
Shizuo’s teeth press hard against each other, his shoulders tense around his
ears. “Attacked?”
“You again,” the man says, past Shizuo’s shoulder, still speaking to Izaya
half-hidden behind the wall Shizuo is making of his body. “You sicced your
goddamn guard dog on them.”
“Hey,” Shizuo growls, irritation flaring to open anger at this
misrepresentation even if he’s not sure which of the dozens of past fights the
stranger is referring to. “I didn’t attack them, they--”
“That’s right.”
The answer comes from over Shizuo’s shoulder, loud and carrying enough to break
right through his escalating ire and derail it to confusion. He look back, his
focus scattering away from the threat still in front of him, but Izaya’s not
looking at him; he’s smirking at the stranger, rocking his weight back over his
heels as if they’re having a pleasant chat instead of on the verge of a
fistfight in the middle of the park.
“Your boys tried to fuck with me and found it was harder than they thought it
would be,” Izaya continues, drawling the words into the beginning of a laugh
like he’s trying to draw the stranger into the fight they’ve only just stalled.
“Did you think I was just some kid unable to defend myself?” His mouth twists,
his smirk drags wider. “You really are an idiot.” And he takes a step forward,
swinging so easily through the motion Shizuo doesn’t have time to catch his arm
and hold him back out of range of danger. Izaya’s past him, the stranger is
right in front of him; and the man stumbles backwards, retreating on unsteady
feet as if Izaya’s approach portends some sincere danger to himself.
“We’ll get you back,” the man manages, looking away from Izaya’s face for a
moment to glare at Shizuo. “Orihara Izaya. Heiwajima Shizuo. Blue Square will
remember you, you’d better be ready.”
Shizuo blinks, understanding of the stranger’s initial statement finally
falling into place in his mind as he recalls the distant sound of an attacker’s
voice: you’ll regret making an enemy of Blue Square shouted with the same
meaningless vehemence as this parting blow, and Izaya lifts his arms, tips his
head into sharp-angled amusement that Shizuo can understand from the whole
stance of his body without even needing to see the cut of his smile.
“We’re ready now. Do you need to get your buddies with you to feel strong
enough to take on two middle schoolers?”
“Fuck you,” the stranger growls, backing up another step. “You’re just kids.”
“And you’re running,” Izaya says, his voice skipping high on laughter as the
stranger turns to retreat in full. Shizuo thinks he might say something else,
might have more reckless words to fling at the other’s retreating back; but the
threat is leaving, the possibility of danger evaporating, and Shizuo’s
adrenaline is turning itself down a completely different track. He reaches out,
closes his hand into a fist of Izaya’s shirt, and drags him back, hard, before
the other has a chance to react to the force.
“What the fuck was that,” he says, hissing the words past gritted teeth as
Izaya trips and nearly falls to the drag of Shizuo’s hold. Shizuo would
apologize, would feel bad for his accidental force; but panic is too bright in
him, fear of what could have happened is too shaky-strong in his veins. “Did
you just pick a fight with an entire gang?”
“You really don’t understand manipulation,” Izaya informs him. He’s got his
feet back under him, has his balance mostly steadied again, but he’s not trying
to pull free, is letting his weight hang unresisting from the drag of Shizuo’s
hold at his shirt. “I just ended a fight. It may be difficult for you to tell
the difference, but possibly you’ve noticed that I’m neither bleeding nor
bruised and he’s gone.”
“He could be back,” Shizuo says, the words frail framework for the concern in
his chest, for the shadow of what could have happened that is forming itself in
the back of his mind.
“He won’t,” Izaya says, dismissing Shizuo’s worries as easily as he always has.
“He thinks he’ll have to go through you to get to me and you already took out a
half dozen of his gang by yourself.”
Shizuo frowns at the reminder, at the memory of the threat that seemed so
harmless at the time but seems so weighty levelled against the too-fragile
shape of the boy in front of him. “You weren’t even there,” he says, his voice
wobbling audibly in his throat over the delayed-reaction fear for Izaya’s
safety he can’t shake from his mind. “That had nothing to do with you, why the
hell would you pretend it did?”
Izaya’s eyelashes dip, his smile fading from the crystalline edge it had.
“Because.” He lifts a hand to curl his fingers in around Shizuo’s wrist and
press his thumb to the inside of the other’s arm. Shizuo can feel the separate
bones of Izaya’s fingers like brands against his skin, a restraint he could
shake off if he didn’t care so much about keeping it whole. “This way I could
get credit for the result.” Izaya pushes, his thumb digging in sharp against
Shizuo’s skin, and Shizuo lets his hold go along with the bright edge of his
panic, easing his fingers away from Izaya’s shirt as his chest loosens enough
to let him take a breath. Izaya’s gaze meeting his is very dark. “And now Blue
Square thinks I have a bodyguard.”
“You don’t.” Shizuo’s wrist is still in Izaya’s hold, his hand stalled in
midair by the grip of the other’s fingers. He doesn’t look away from Izaya’s
eyes, doesn’t try to pull his hand free even as his chest constricts on a
shiver of unnecessary panic, as he opens his mouth to let the obvious question
fall free of his lips. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here?”
Izaya’s eyelashes flutter. “Does it matter?” he asks, and drops his hold,
pulling his touch away to let Shizuo’s hand fall back to his side. “You were.”
Shizuo flinches at the double impact of the statement, the relief of the truth
of it and the shiver of fear at the unspoken alternative. “I might not be next
time.”
Izaya tips his head to the side, his hair falling into a shadow in front of his
eyes. “Well then,” he says, as his mouth drags into his usual vicious smile.
“You’ll just have to look after me all the time, won’t you, senpai?”
It’s a joke. Shizuo knows it is, can hear the taunt on Izaya’s voice as clearly
as if it were written in front of him. He can still feel the words shudder
through him as if they have a weight all their own, as if Izaya has handed his
personal safety into Shizuo’s clumsy hold without even batting an eye at the
danger Shizuo poses to everyone around him, the danger Izaya has seen himself
on more than one occasion.
Izaya is joking, but still. It’s nice to be trusted.
***** Actions *****
Shizuo never thought asking a question would be so difficult.
He’s gotten better at handling the constant electricity that comes with Izaya’s
presence since his personal realization almost a year ago. It’s strange to
think that he’s in love with his best friend, the stranger when he thinks about
the fact that Izaya hasn’t noticed or hasn’t admitted to noticing; Shizuo can
think back on some of those first few interactions after his internal crisis
and cringes at how obvious his every action feels in retrospect, when even his
attempts at casual interaction twisted to stuttering awkwardness by his own
self-consciousness. But he can barely remember the objective details of those
interactions at all for the overwhelming weight of his own near-panic during
them; maybe he was far less obvious than he felt like he was, maybe his
behavior seemed hardly unusual when seen through Izaya’s eyes instead of the
self-awareness of his own. And it’s gotten easier since then, simpler to fall
into the habits of familiarity around the constant presence of affection in his
chest, until the fact of his own infatuation feels almost unimportant, a fact
about him to be accepted and ignored the same way he ignores the sound of his
own voice in his throat. Usually Shizuo can work around it, can go whole hours
without consciously looking at the faint ache in his chest whenever Izaya’s
mouth curves onto a laugh or when he reaches over Shizuo for something and
Shizuo can see the casual grace in the movement of his fingers. It’s bearable,
at least, and that’s enough to live with, a burden that Shizuo can imagine
carrying through his life without major issues.
At least, that’s how it usually is. But today Shizuo has a question to ask, has
been turning it over and over in his head all day instead of paying attention
to class or to the casual taunts Izaya greeted him with at lunch, and his heart
has been pounding him into overactive adrenaline all day, as if he’s fallen
back in time by months to the first few weeks of hyperaware stress, when every
flutter of Izaya’s lashes nearly stopped his heart. His throat keeps closing up
on tension, his shoulders keep hunching, and he can feel every second like a
countdown, like an audible reminder that he has to say it, that he has to ask,
that he’s running out of time to frame words for his request. It didn’t seem
like that big a deal this morning during his walk to school, when he decided to
bring up the subject with Izaya over lunch; but it’s been gaining importance
all day, until he feels like the words are going to give him away the moment he
opens his mouth and lets them free. But he has to ask, he told himself he would
and that means he has to, and finally he just does, blurting “Are you going to
be alone on Christmas again?” while Izaya is distracted by leaning as hard
against Shizuo’s shoulder as if he’s trying to knock him over onto the rooftop.
Shizuo can feel his heartrate pick up as soon as the words are past his lips,
can feel adrenaline spike hot in his veins; but Izaya just says, “I don’t
know,” as calmly as if he didn’t notice the strain on Shizuo’s voice or the
jittery tension running all through the other’s body. Shizuo turns his head to
look at Izaya from under his hair but Izaya’s not even looking at him; he has
his head tipped up and is gazing at the sky with half-formed attention behind
his eyes. His features look more delicate in profile, with the line of his nose
and the dark of his lashes framed by the pale of the clouds overhead; Shizuo
can see his lips shift on the tension of a smile, knows that he’s about to be
teased in the moment before Izaya continues, “I could have a harem of
girlfriends by then, Shizuo-senpai, it’s hard to say.”
Shizuo’s skin goes cold for a moment of unjustified jealousy. “Don’t be a
brat,” he says, pushing hard against Izaya to shove him off and away with more
force than he intends before Izaya notices the flicker of hurt that Shizuo can
feel aching in his chest and over his expression. Izaya tips sideways, catching
himself against the rooftop as he starts to fall, and when he glances back at
Shizuo his smile is so sharp it makes the taunt under his statement clear as
nothing more than mockery. Shizuo has to take a breath before the strain in his
chest eases, before he can blink back the hurt in his eyes, and when he goes on
the shape of the invitation he so agonized over sounds like more of a subject
change than the telltale hope he was afraid it would. “Shinra’s talking about
having a party. You should come too.”
“Maybe I have better things to do.” Izaya’s still watching Shizuo; his eyes are
dark with amusement to match the smirk still clinging to his lips and the
laughter dark in his throat. “It’s always easier to win money when the other
players are tipsy on celebratory sake.”
Shizuo flinches from the image. “Shit,” he breathes, letting his hold at
Izaya’s shoulder go and ducking his head to stare down at his lap. He can
picture it too-clearly, Izaya in some shadowy room surrounded by a haze of
cigarette smoke and men wearing danger as easily as well-tailored suits, his
fingers too-fast over playing cards or poker chips and that smile begging for a
punch or worse, that voice that won’t stop reaching for danger. It would be so
easy for him to push too far, to treat his own safety as a game in the wrong
company and the wrong place; Shizuo’s heart twists at the idea, his skin
prickling with horror at the thought. He wonders if he would even know if
something happened, if Izaya wouldn’t just disappear like a shadow with the
coming of the dawn and evaporate back out of his life as fast as he toppled
into it. His throat is tight with the idea, his hands trembling for lack of
utility, for the inability to do anything to stop the crisis he can see too
clearly in his imagination; but there’s nothing to do, no action he can take to
undo the danger Izaya is so keen on surrounding himself with, and in the end
all he can manage is the complete inadequacy of “You shouldn’t fuck around with
the color gangs, you know,” as if that understatement is likely to so much as
ruffle Izaya’s composure.
“They aren’t the color gangs,” Izaya informs him. “It’s just a friendly game of
betting.”
“You’re going to get yourself hurt,” Shizuo tells him, feeling certainty he
doesn’t want heavy on his tongue. “You never take it seriously but you’re
playing with adults, people with weapons. They could really hurt you and no one
would be able to even do anything about it afterwards.”
“I’m not going to get hurt,” Izaya says, but he sounds unsteady just for a
moment, like he might actually be considering the possibility. Shizuo’s heart
lifts, hope lighting itself bright in his veins; but then Izaya laughs, a sharp
cough of sound loud enough to chase away any hope Shizuo had of winning his
point. “Is this what you do with your free time, worry what trouble I’m getting
into?”
“Of course I worry,” Shizuo snaps, looking up to glare frustration at the other
boy. It’s the laughter, he thinks, that crackles so bright through him, that
sparks the beginning of anger into his veins; it’s the amusement that falls so
easily from Izaya’s lips at Shizuo’s concern, as if the mere possibility of
someone caring about his safety is too absurd to bear. It aches in him, runs up
against the barrier of self-conscious on his tongue and sweeps over it until
he’s blurting more honesty than he intends, spilling words on a flood of
frustrated fear before he can think them through. “Every time we’re downtown
I’m worried Blue Square’s going to decide to get revenge for some stupid thing
you did to them.” He ducks his head, reaches out to brace the strain in his
fingers against the rooftop like that will ground him to silence; but
adrenaline is too hot in him, long-held fear too well-formed to stop his speech
once he’s started. “At least I’m there, though. What if you had been on your
own when that guy came after you?”
“Izumii,” Izaya corrects, and Shizuo looks up at him again, his mouth dragging
hard to a frown at the corners.
“Like that,” he growls. “You shouldn’t even know that, you’re a middle
schooler. How do you know the name of the head of Blue Square?”
“I pay attention,” Izaya says. He’s staring at Shizuo as intently as if he’s
trying to see right through him; his mouth is relaxed, his smile forgotten
somewhere in the intensity of his attention. “That’s why I’ll be fine. I’m not
stupid, senpai, I can make myself valuable enough to stay safe.”
“No,” Shizuo snaps, rejection too fast in his throat to let him decide what it
is he’s pushing away: Izaya’s paper-thin claim to safety, his overreaching
trust in his own cleverness, his assumption that he has to make value for
himself, as if he’s not the most important thing in Shizuo’s life just as he
is. When Shizuo reaches out it’s violence wound tight in his shoulder,
aggression trying to dig its claws into him and shove him into the satisfaction
of a fight; it’s only months of habit that stops the swing of his arm from
becoming a punch, only caution ingrained deep into his fingers that stalls his
hand from curling into a fist and lets his hand shove at Izaya’s hair instead
of knocking him down to convey Shizuo’s point without the attempt of words that
never quite do what he wants them to. “You should just stay safe, leave this
kind of thing to adults.” Shizuo’s anger shifts, unravelling from the first
surge of aggressive irritation as his fingers touch Izaya’s hair, as he feels
how easily the other gives way to the force of his touch, and it’s pain that
clenches tight in his chest, that seizes around his heart as if to steal the
breath from his lungs. Shizuo sucks in an inhale, affection and concern aching
into a harmony of caring in him, and when his fingers curl to pull Izaya in
towards him the other capitulates as easily to the pull as he did to the push,
toppling sideways and against Shizuo’s chest before he can think through the
action. Izaya takes a sharp breath, makes a startled gasp of sound against
Shizuo’s jacket, but for a moment Shizuo can’t let him go, can’t do anything
but tighten his hold to press Izaya closer like he can make a wall of defense
for the other with the span of his own shoulders. Shizuo’s heart is pounding,
his fingers tense against the soft dark of Izaya’s hair, and Izaya is stiff and
awkward against him but he doesn’t let him go, and when he takes a breath it’s
deliberately, it’s with the weight of sincerity forming itself to coherency on
his tongue.
“You’re my best friend,” he says, the words going ragged around the weight of
emotion in his throat, the preemptive terror of what-might-be still running
through his body in expectation of a fight that has yet to materialize, in
defense of what isn’t even threatened, yet. Shizuo’s whole face is hot, his
cheeks burning to self-consciousness at the sound of his voice so desperate in
his throat; but he keeps talking anyway, fighting for the words to express the
weight of affection far heavier against his chest than the burden of Izaya
leaning against him. “Don’t do something stupid and get yourself hurt.”
It’s not enough. The words aren’t enough, they don’t carry enough of the weight
to capture the ache in Shizuo’s throat or the self-aware heat flickering all
across his skin. But his arm is tight around Izaya’s shoulders, his fingers
pressing close into the other’s hair, and Shizuo thinks that might be doing a
better job of speaking for him than his voice can manage.
His actions have always been louder than his words.
***** Comfort *****
“You should have worn a jacket,” Shizuo tells Izaya almost before he has the
door open to let the other in. “You’re going to freeze if you keep wandering
around town like you have been.”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” Izaya says, but he’s quick enough to follow
Shizuo into the entryway that Shizuo bumps against him as he lets the door
swing shut again. “It’s fine, it’s not even that cold.”
“It is cold,” Shizuo tells him, reaching out to press his palm against the
wind-chilled air clinging to Izaya’s shirt. At least it’s thicker than the ones
he sometimes wears; those leave him shivering so badly he can barely speak
coherently for minutes after he makes it to Shizuo’s house. “What do you have
against being comfortable?”
“I’m fine,” Izaya says, and he’s pulling away before Shizuo can reach out to
stop him, moving to sit at the edge of the entryway as he pulls his shoes off.
“It just makes me happier to be here.”
Shizuo’s heart stutters in his chest. “Shut up,” he says, but he’s blushing,
his cheeks are going warmer even though he knows Izaya’s teasing him more than
sincere. Izaya’s head is still ducked down over his shoes and he doesn’t look
up when he huffs a laugh of response; Shizuo clears his throat and turns away,
retreating down the hallway while Izaya is lingering over his shoes. There’s a
table along the side of the hall, the flat surface usually given over to catch
jackets and occasional textbooks when Shizuo isn’t motivated enough to actually
put them away where they belong, but right now it’s clear of everything except
for a few neatly wrapped presents in plain paper. Shizuo doesn’t have the check
the names on the packages; he knows what’s behind the loops of ribbon and folds
of paper, can reach over the presents for Kasuka’s friends to pick up the
larger, softer package absent anything but his own knowledge of what’s inside
to identify it. It’s light in his hands, the paper crumpling to press close
against the weight inside, and Shizuo’s breath catches on another rush of
adrenaline, the same one that hits him every time he thinks about the gift in
his hands, self-consciousness flaring hot across his cheeks with a blush he
can’t shake off. He has to take a minute to collect himself, a moment to steady
his breathing to something approximating ordinary calm, and it’s only then that
he turns around to head back down the hallway and find where Izaya has gone.
It’s not a difficult search. Izaya never fails to beeline for the kotatsu after
he arrives, the speed of his retreat there entirely undermining his unfailing
claims to be unaffected by the cold, and he’s there as soon as Shizuo comes in
the door, his legs tucked under the warmth and his hands curled into the edge
of the blanket. There’s a little bit more color in his cheeks, some of the pale
chill of the outdoors has faded to a more human glow, and he looks up as Shizuo
comes in, his lips curving onto a grin as he sees the other.
“Thank god,” he drawls. “If you didn’t come back soon I was…” Shizuo can see
his gaze drop to the package in the other’s hands, can see Izaya’s smile
flicker out-of-focus as he sees what Shizuo is holding; his voice fades to
silence, speech giving way to the weight of shock as he stares at the looping
ribbons winding around the present in Shizuo’s grip. There’s complete silence
for a moment, with nothing but the sound of Shizuo’s heart beating loud in his
ears as Izaya stares at his gift; and then Shizuo takes a breath, and says,
“Here,” and steps forward to shove the present in Izaya’s direction.
Izaya doesn’t take it for a moment. He’s still gazing at the package instead of
looking up to see the way Shizuo’s entire face is glowing into embarrassment;
he looks completely blank, as if he’s struggling to gain some kind of
comprehension on what is happening. Shizuo just waits, holding the present out
over the space between them, and finally Izaya unwinds a hand from the edge of
the kotatsu and reaches up to brace his grip against the edge of the package.
“Merry Christmas,” Shizuo says, the words rough on self-consciousness in his
throat, and he lets his hold go so he can move away and sit down on the other
side of the kotatsu. His cheeks are burning, his embarrassment so strong he’s
not sure he’ll ever lose the glow hot under his skin; but Izaya’s not looking
at him still, hasn’t yet lifted his focus from the package held in his hand.
“I don’t have anything for you,” he says finally, still staring fixedly at the
present like he can unwrap it through the power of concentration without
physical effort.
“It’s fine,” Shizuo says. His voice grates on his tongue and tries to crack
high in the back of his mouth. “You didn’t need to get me anything.” He has to
cough to clear his throat, and even then his voice is shaking audibly to his
ears. “It’s still for you. I’m not going to take it back or anything.”
“Oh,” Izaya says. He blinks hard, his mouth tightening to the beginnings of a
frown for a moment; and then he moves all at once, setting his fingers in
against the wrapping and digging in hard to tear through the clean lines of the
paper. Shizuo had half-expected Izaya to be careful with unwrapping, deliberate
about the action the same way Kasuka is, as if the process of easing the paper
off is as much a rehearsed performance as the satisfaction of anticipation; but
he tears right through the tape and paper, dragging at the ribbon until it
snaps under the force of his fingers and with as much speed as if his present
is likely to evaporate before he gets it in his hands. Shizuo barely has time
to take a breath of panicked anticipation; and then the wrapping is off, and
Izaya’s present topples into his lap.
Izaya doesn’t say anything for a minute. His head is tipped down, his hair
falling in front of his face to shadow over his eyes; all Shizuo can see of his
expression is his mouth, his lips so flat and still that Shizuo can’t get any
kind of a read off of them even from across the width of the kotatsu. He pushes
the wrapping aside without looking at it, crumpling the paper and shoving at it
without watching, and it’s only then that he reaches down to settle his fingers
into the soft of the jacket in his lap.
“You said you’d wear one,” Shizuo says from the other side of the table. His
throat is tight on strain and the words come out shaky and trembling; he has to
close his mouth to collect himself, has to swallow hard before he can trust
himself to make an attempt at speech. “Before.”
“If I had one I liked,” Izaya says without looking up. His voice is as
unreadable as what of his expression Shizuo can see; but his hands are trailing
over the lines of the jacket, his fingers winding into the soft of the pale fur
around the hood and the cuffs of the dark coat. “Something in my style.”
“You don’t have to wear it,” Shizuo manages around the blush still hot across
his cheeks and tense in his throat. “It’s okay if you don’t like it. I just
thought--” he sees the end of his sentence coming, stutters for a moment of
too-late hesitation over the admission, but it’s falling from his lips before
he can hold it back: “--it would look good on you.”
Izaya looks up. His mouth is still soft, still so relaxed as to show no trace
of his self-conscious frown or the amused smirk that is more typical against
his lips; but his eyes are wide, his stare so startled Shizuo’s blush gains an
entire second wave of heat to burn across his skin. He can see the color behind
Izaya’s eyes, can pick out traces of crimson in the shadows of the other’s
stare, and he should really probably look away but he can’t make himself blink
when Izaya is looking at him like that. They’re both quiet for a moment,
staring at each other from across the span of the kotatsu; then “Oh,” Izaya
says, and blinks, and ducks his head to look down at his lap again. “Well.”
Shizuo takes a breath, trying to calm the thud of his heart in his chest in the
moment he is free of Izaya’s attention. “You don’t have to--”
“Weren’t you going to make tea?” Izaya asks abruptly, cutting off Shizuo’s
half-apologetic reassurance before it’s well-formed. “It’s freezing in here,
can’t you afford to turn up the thermostat by a few degrees?”
“What?” Shizuo asks, startled by the sudden subject change. “Oh. Right.” He
retreats from the edge of the kotatsu, pushing to his feet so he can go in
pursuit of tea. “One sec.”
He starts the water first, leaves the kettle to heat while he goes to turn up
the heat; but the thermostat is reading higher than it usually is, and the air
is radiant-warm against Shizuo’s skin when he pays attention to it. He frowns
at the display, leaves it where it is as the kettle starts to whistle with
steam, and by the time he’s heading back into the living room he has an apology
ready at his lips to offer along with the cup of tea in his hold.
“The heater’s already turned up,” he says as he steps through the doorway. “I’m
not supposed to--” and Izaya looks back at him, and Shizuo goes quiet as he
sees the dark of the jacket around the other’s shoulders.
“It’s fine,” Izaya says, watching the cup of tea instead of Shizuo’s face. “If
you were trying to freeze me out of your house, senpai, you really made a
mistake in your choice of gift.” He lifts a hand to gesture towards Shizuo’s
hands. “At least give me the tea.”
Shizuo steps forward to offer a cup to Izaya’s casually dominant gesture. He’s
still looking at the weight of the coat around the other’s shoulders, at the
length of the sleeves gathering at the thin of the other’s wrists. “It’s too
big,” he says as Izaya takes the cup from his hands to cradle between his
palms. “Sorry.”
“Do you usually apologize for giving presents?” Izaya asks against the edge of
his cup. “I’m not overly familiar with the process but I’m fairly sure you’re
doing it wrong.” He takes a sip before Shizuo can warn him of the heat, but
even though the liquid must be scalding he doesn’t visibly flinch. He leans in
against the table, bracing his elbows at the support; the movement leaves the
back of his neck bare, shows an inch of pale skin between the top edge of his
shirt and the soft of his hair tangling against his skin.
“It’s fine,” Izaya says, very softly, and Shizuo’s attention comes back up from
the back of the other’s neck to his face. Izaya still has his head bowed over
the tea, still has his hair half-shadowing his face, but his cheeks are faintly
pink when Shizuo looks for it, collecting heat that has nothing to do with the
steam rising from the tea in his hands. “Thank you.”
Shizuo can feel his heart skip, can feel his breath catch in his throat; for a
moment it’s impossible to even think clearly, much less to find the coherency
to shape around the framework of words.
“Yeah,” he finally manages, and steps forward around the edge of the kotatsu to
come to the far side. “You’re welcome.”
Izaya doesn’t look up from his tea as Shizuo sits down, keeps his head bowed
and his shoulders tipped in as if he’s trying to protect the warmth of the
liquid from the nonexistent chill in the air. But when Shizuo slides his feet
under the kotatsu Izaya pushes against him, his toes catching at the edge of
Shizuo’s jeans, and when Shizuo lets his knee fall wide Izaya slides his foot
up against the other’s ankle to press just over the knob at his ankle.
His feet are warm against Shizuo’s skin.
***** Impulse *****
“Kasuka got a perfect score on his latest mathematics test,” Shizuo’s mother
says to his father, the words warm and easy to ignore in the low hum of
familiarity that comes with them. “The extra work you did with him really paid
off.”
“Did he?” Shizuo’s father says, warmly enough that Shizuo can hear the smile on
his voice. “That’s great, son.”
“Yeah.” Kasuka, that time, sounding as disinterested as he does in any subject,
even those that relate to his own successes. “Thanks.”
Shizuo is barely listening to the conversation. He’s been absorbed in the
simple satisfaction of enjoying his dinner and appreciating his father being
home early on a worknight; there’s something comforting about having all four
of them sitting in one place together, even if it’s an unusual enough
occurrence to merit a pair of extra side dishes provided by his mother’s
pleasure in the event. He’s expecting the dialogue to continue as it has been,
working over domestic trivialities between his parents or extolling Kasuka’s
latest academic achievement, so he’s not prepared at all when his mother says,
“And Shizuo got accepted at Raijin!” sounding so warm the words seem to glow in
the air.
Shizuo startles at the sound of his name, his attention dragged sharply back to
the present by the statement. When he lifts his head everyone is watching him,
his mother beaming pride and his father looking startled but pleased. Even
Kasuka has looked up, although this isn’t news to him or of great importance in
any case; for just a moment Shizuo feels a shiver of discomfort just from being
the recipient of so much attention all at the same time.
“Good job,” Shizuo’s father says, smiling the proud smile that makes the very
corners of his eyes crinkle into warmth. “I knew you could do it.”
“He’s been studying for weeks,” his mother puts in, still glowing happiness in
Shizuo’s general direction. “Even getting his friends to help him.”
“It’s fine,” Shizuo says, ducking his head to the burn of embarrassment
starting to spread across his cheeks. “It wasn’t that hard to get in.”
“You still made it,” Shizuo’s father tells him, reaching across the table to
pat his shoulder. “That takes effort.”
“You didn’t get expelled from middle school either,” Kasuka puts in with the
blunt honesty that always frames anything he says into cool sincerity.
“Graduating is pretty impressive.”
Shizuo glances at him sideways, feeling his mouth tug on a smile as his mother
tsks at Kasuka for his comment. “You sound like Izaya-kun.”
“It is impressive,” Kasuka says with the absolutely flat tone that seems to
indicate precisely the opposite. “You’ve calmed down a lot since you started
middle school.”
“That’s true,” Shizuo’s father allows from the other side of the table. “For a
while there I thought you’d never give up fighting.”
“I wasn’t trying to fight,” Shizuo says to the table, frowning hard as if to
glare right through the surface. “I just get angry.”
“There, there,” his mother puts in, and reaches out to ruffle a hand through
his hair. Shizuo knows he ought to protest this on principle -- he’s going to
start high school in a few weeks, and this is hardly something he can let stand
then -- but all he can manage is to lean away after a few seconds, and even
then he’s starting to smile without meaning to, too pleased by the unexpected
praise to find it in him to resist. “We’re all very proud of you, you know,
Shizuo.”
“What are you going to do for high school?” Kasuka asks from the other side of
the table. He’s looking back at his dinner, his attention fixed on the food in
front of him rather than on Shizuo; the question is so off-hand Shizuo can’t
even make sense of it for the first moment.
“What?” he asks, frowning through the first breaths of confusion. “What are you
talking about?”
“You’re going to high school with new classmates,” Kasuka says, taking a bite
of his food and pausing to chew and swallow before he goes on. “You could
reinvent yourself if you wanted.”
Shizuo shrugs one-shouldered. “It’s fine,” he says, looking back to his own
meal. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what I look like as long as I--”
He’s not trying to think of Izaya. Shizuo rarely makes the effort to call up
the other boy’s face, or smile, or laugh; those are all just things that come
naturally, that flicker in and out of his awareness with such regularity that
he’s stopped even blushing about them, that he doesn’t even blink when he’s
interrupted in the middle of the almost-daydreams that catch and hold his
attention whenever he has a few minutes of peace without another subject in
mind. But this is still startlingly clear, even for his own imagination,
Izaya’s voice as bright as a recording in his head: you have to look at least
as dangerous as you are, the weight of slender fingers catching and dragging
through his hair with far more shivering electricity than his mother’s touch
brought just now. He can see Izaya’s smile, can hear the spark and cut of the
other’s laugh as Shizuo pulled him forward and close against him to cut off his
argument; for just a moment he can almost smell metal in the air, can almost
taste licorice on his tongue.
“Oh,” he says, and it’s impulse in his throat and adrenaline hot in his veins,
and probably he should think about this longer but for just a moment
imagination catches fire in his mind, for just a moment reflex makes the
decision instead of rationality. “Actually. I’ve been thinking about bleaching
my hair.”
Shizuo wonders if Izaya feels this reckless satisfaction whenever he does
anything. With the crackle of excitement in his veins, he can understand the
appeal.
***** Steam *****
The water is cold against Shizuo’s hair.
There’s no particular need for this. As far as Shizuo knows, the bleaching
process is all but complete already; he doesn’t think the temperature of the
water is likely to make any difference, now that the chemicals that have been
burning a dull ache against his scalp have done what they’re meant to do. He
thinks it’s probably just Izaya being a brat and not letting the water run warm
enough for comfort before he rinses the bleach out; but the other reached out
as soon as Shizuo took a breath for protest and sank his fingers into the
tangled weight of Shizuo’s hair to drag across his scalp, and Shizuo had to
shut his mouth hard on the sound that threatened the back of his throat before
he actually whimpered at the friction of Izaya’s touch against. His skin is
aching faintly, as if the chemicals left to soak into his hair have left him
with a mild sunburn wherever they lingered; but the sensation is wholly
eclipsed by the electricity of Izaya’s touch, as if the extra sensitivity of
Shizuo’s skin has only compounded the usual starbright friction that Izaya’s
fingers carry. It was bad enough when they started, with Izaya wetting Shizuo’s
hair flat to his head before working the chemicals into the dark strands with a
touch far gentler than any Shizuo has yet felt from him; Shizuo had to shut his
eyes to the sensation of it, had to concentrate on breathing as normally as he
could while his heart tried to pound itself out-of-rhythm in his chest as if to
meet the delicate weight of Izaya’s hands in his hair. But this is almost
worse, Shizuo thinks, with the extra sensitivity of his skin prickling
anticipation in advance of each of Izaya’s movements, until it’s all he can do
to manage “How does it look?” with any oddities in his tone hopefully disguised
by the water cascading over his head and splashing across his bare shoulders.
“Did you miss any parts?”
“Of course I did.” Izaya drags his fingers across the top of Shizuo’s head,
pressing harder than he did before; Shizuo shudders at the weight of his touch,
his shoulders hunching in like he’s lost his ability to keep himself upright,
but if Izaya notices he doesn’t comment, just draws his hand back to slide his
fingers through the spray of the water again. “Sorry, did you not want a
checkerboard pattern?”
“Don’t be a brat.” Shizuo’s heart is still beating double-time, anxiety about
the effect of the bleach warring for control over his pulse with the constant
adrenaline that comes with Izaya’s presence. “How is it?”
Izaya’s fingers drag through Shizuo’s hair, tugging against the strands like
he’s holding them up for consideration. “Terrible.” His hold slides away, his
hand presses against Shizuo’s forehead; Shizuo tips his head back in obedience
to the pull of the other’s touch, fighting to hold his expression steady as
Izaya’s fingers wind into his hair to sweep it back from his forehead and into
the splash of the water. “Turns out this was an awful idea, senpai.”
Shizuo can hear the amusement in Izaya’s voice. “Fine. Don’t tell me, I’ll just
wait to see for myself.” Izaya’s hand slides back into his hair and he leans
backwards without thinking to follow it, trailing the contact until his
shoulders bump against resistance and the soft of fabric catches and clings to
the wet of his shoulders. Shizuo’s heart skids, his breathing sticking on
sudden awareness of how close Izaya is, of how near he must be standing to lean
over him like he is, and when he speaks he can feel his voice quavering in his
throat. “Aren’t you going to get wet standing that close?”
“Nah,” Izaya purrs, and his fingers close on Shizuo’s hair and drag hard
against the other’s oversensitive scalp. “It’s fine.” Shizuo huffs at the hurt
of it, pain overriding his hyperawareness of Izaya’s proximity for just a
moment as he leans back to ease the tension. His shoulders catch against the
other’s shirt again, his weight pressing close against Izaya’s stomach, and for
a moment all he can smell is that weird bitter sweetness in the air, like the
heat of Izaya’s skin is enough to overcome even the harsh drag of chemicals
hanging in the steam around them.
“If you say so,” Shizuo allows. His heart is going too fast, refusing to ease
even when he tries to breathe normally; he lifts a hand to push through the
weight of his wet hair, to expend some of his nervous energy with the ease of
the physical action. There’s no trace of the slick chemicals in the strands
when he feels for them; his hair is just wet, rinsed back to clean by Izaya’s
efforts. “Isn’t it all out now?”
“Almost,” Izaya says, and Shizuo just has time to hear the laughter under the
other’s voice before the spray of the water hits him full in the face. He gasps
some protest rendered incoherent by the splash of water in his mouth and flails
sideways in instinctive reaction; his fingers catch skin, his hand shoves
against a wrist, and the water swings away to splash in an arc all across
Shizuo’s mostly-dry jeans. Shizuo opens his eyes, reaches out to grab at
Izaya’s wrist; and Izaya drops the showerhead, stepping away and back as it
falls to spin against the floor. Shizuo turns his head aside in instinctive
reaction, as if looking away will save him from the wet, but the showerhead
just topples sideways to spray across his chest and soak through the leg of his
jeans.
“Fuck,” Shizuo blurts, kicking himself sideways in an attempt to stage a too-
late retreat and keep his clothes dry.
Izaya’s laugh is sharp from behind him, crackling into delight in the other’s
throat as his fingers settle into the weight of Shizuo’s wet hair. “You’re
already soaked,” he says, taking a step so Shizuo can feel the other pressing
close against his shoulder as he uses Shizuo as a makeshift wall. “Just stay
there and keep me safe from the water.”
“Fuck you,” Shizuo tells him as he twists to make a grab for the other boy.
Izaya leans back but it’s not far enough to dodge Shizuo’s reach, not enough to
keep his hand free of Shizuo’s hold. Shizuo’s fingers drag across damp skin,
his hold curling in tight against Izaya’s wrist, and when he pulls Izaya
stumbles forward, his usual easy grace stripped by the wet of the floor as his
footing skids to drop him forward hard across Shizuo’s lap. For a moment his
weight is heavy over Shizuo’s legs, one hand bracing hard against the other’s
thigh; but Shizuo’s moving fast, twisting before appreciation of the position
can win a self-conscious flush from his cheeks and sliding off his seat
entirely to spill them both onto the floor. Izaya lands hard against the tile,
his breath rushing out of him in an audible huff, and Shizuo lands on top of
him, his knees angled open around Izaya’s hips as his weight holds the other to
the floor without a chance of winning freedom.
“You brat,” Shizuo says, the words catching to laughter on the adrenaline
surging to an open flame all through his veins. Izaya is blinking hard, his
expression knocked blank by his impact with the floor; there are water droplets
clinging to his lashes, a haze of humidity in the air casting his features to
unusual softness along with the force of distraction from his fall. His mouth
is wet from the damp, his lips parted on the effort of his half-stunned
breathing, and for just a moment Shizuo’s heart stutters over a beat, his pulse
skipping out-of-time in his throat as he stares at Izaya pinned under him. It’s
only for a moment; then Izaya shakes his head, some of the focus coming back
into his gaze, and Shizuo reaches out without looking for the showerhead still
splashing water at them both.
“Take that,” he says, his voice wobbling over heat in his throat, and he turns
the spray at the other boy’s face in petty vengeance for the water dripping
from his jeans. Izaya chokes protest, turning his head away from the splash of
the water as he reaches up to shove blindly at the spray, and Shizuo grins even
with his heart pounding doubletime in his chest.
“Ah,” Izaya sputters, coughing through a laugh as his fingers catch at the
showerhead and drag down to shove against Shizuo’s hand. “Stop, stop!”
“You’re such an asshole,” Shizuo says, but the words turn in his throat to come
out warm with affection. He lets the showerhead go, leaving it to splash water
into an arc across the floor again, and Izaya gasps a breath and lifts a hand
to drag a dripping sleeve across his face. His cheeks are flushed, his hair
plastered to his forehead; Shizuo can see the edge of his collarbones under his
shirt with how close the wet fabric clings to his skin. It’s only as Izaya
shifts that Shizuo realizes he’s still straddling the other, only as Izaya
blinks his vision back to clarity that Shizuo thinks to pull back and turn his
head away to hide the embarrassed color that sweeps over his cheeks at the
realization of how close they were.
“Have you ever tried just being nice for once?” he asks, the question more a
means of distracting Izaya away from Shizuo’s self-conscious flush as he shuts
off the faucet than a real inquiry.
“No.” Izaya’s pushing his hair back from his face when Shizuo turns back
around, his head ducked as he tries to strip water from the strands with the
force of his touch. “You’d die of shock, and I’d hate to have my senpai’s death
on my conscience.”
Shizuo huffs a smile. “Brat.”
“Bully,” Izaya tells him, lifting his head to glance at Shizuo from behind
damp-shadowed lashes as his mouth drags into a smirk. “You shouldn’t pick on
people weaker than you, senpai.” He rolls his shoulders back, frowning hard at
the motion; his shirt is sticking to him everywhere it touches, Shizuo can see
the unthinking elegance of the movement through the whole flex of Izaya’s chest
under the fabric. “Am I supposed to just go home like this?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Shizuo tells him, and reaches out to offer his hand. Izaya
takes it without hesitating, his fingers curling in tight around Shizuo’s
wrist, and Shizuo pulls him to his feet in a rush. Izaya’s footing slips, his
balance wobbling against the wet floor before he catches himself enough to let
Shizuo’s hand go. He’s close enough for Shizuo to smell the warmth of his damp
skin in the air; it takes an active effort for Shizuo to not step in closer and
press his nose against the tangle of Izaya’s hair or the pale curve of his
throat and breathe in until he’s filled his lungs with that odd lingering
aroma. Shizuo swallows, takes a breath, wills his heart to beat less rapidly.
“You can borrow some of my clothes while those are drying.”
Izaya cuts a frown up at Shizuo. “Your clothes don’t fit me,” he complains. “I
don’t want to walk home looking like I can’t dress myself.”
“So stay until yours are dry.” Shizuo can feel the beginnings of desperation in
his chest, the painful edge of hope and desire tangling together into something
that hisses for relief from the pressure of his ribcage. He can imagine his
clothes against Izaya’s shoulders, the way the too-big lines will frame the
delicate edges of the other’s body into something the more appealing for the
juxtaposition, the way the fabric will catch and hold the coffee-rich smell of
Izaya’s skin even after the other has left. “You weren’t planning on just
leaving as soon as we were done, were you?”
“Hmm,” Izaya hums at him, his frown giving way to tension against the damp
curve of his lips. “I was, but if you’re that desperate for company…”
“Oh my god,” Shizuo groans, and pushes against the wet of Izaya’s hair to shove
him away. Izaya stumbles over the tile, his footing less secure than Shizuo
thought it was, but he lands against the wall instead of falling to the floor,
and that tension at his lips is giving way to a grin as he catches himself back
to upright.
“Stay,” Shizuo tells Izaya, feeling his shoulders tense on the familiar, aching
desire to keep Izaya as long as he can, to frame him with the warmth of a warm
house and the comfort of family and food and to satisfy Shizuo’s own selfish
desire to have him close enough to touch at a moment’s notice if the
everpresent pressure of longing gets too much to bear. “You can go home after
dinner, alright?”
Izaya’s grin dissolves into a laugh, the easy sound of it as good an answer as
words would be, and when he pushes away from the wall Shizuo steps in towards
him and reaches out to loop an arm around Izaya’s shoulders as they move
towards the door. It’s part apology for his too-hasty push a moment before,
part to keep Izaya’s footing steady against the wet of the tile; but mostly
it’s because in the first moment of pulling Izaya in closer Shizuo can take a
breath against the wet of the other’s hair, can fill his lungs with the damp
heat of that elusive smell against Izaya’s skin.
Izaya smells rich like coffee and bitter like licorice; but against Shizuo’s
tongue, he tastes like vanilla.
***** Timely *****
High school is more pleasant than Shizuo expects.
He was braced for the worst. His first few days at middle school were the
hardest he had in all three years, with his name just well-known enough from
his elementary school exploits to get him all kinds of unwanted attention from
new schoolmates determined to try their strength against him. Usually it takes
weeks before the challengers fade, days before he can make it home unaccosted
by upperclassmen anxious to try their hand against his infamous strength. But
maybe high schoolers are more rational about the fights they pick, or maybe his
name is familiar enough by now to stop even the most reckless gang members at
Rajin; or maybe it’s like Izaya said, and his newly blond hair is enough to
scare off possible attackers. In any case, Shizuo spends the day in remarkable
peace, with nothing but Shinra’s chatter over the lunch break to interrupt the
calm of his school day. It’s strange to be surrounded by quiet, odd to have
nothing more dramatic than Shinra’s lovestruck sighs to accompany the single
lunch Shizuo brought with him for the day; he finds himself getting lost in the
quiet, staring down into his half-finished meal without responding to Shinra’s
inquiries for minutes at a time until the other succeeds in getting his
attention. Shinra doesn’t mind -- he’s as willing to laugh off Shizuo’s
distraction as he is ready to discount everything in his life but his love as
unimportant -- but Shizuo feels off-balance all day, as if he never quite woke
all the way up this morning and has been wandering around in a daze ever since.
His class is too calm, his lunch too peaceful; even Shinra’s constant stream of
conversation is background noise, it doesn’t carry the same way Izaya’s sharp
laughter would. And Shizuo keeps thinking of Izaya, his attention wandering
back to the middle school as if it can cross the distance alone and leave his
body to occupy a seat while he checks on the trouble he is sure Izaya is
getting into without him. He worries about fights, worries about Blue Square,
worries about the height of the school roof and the cold of the wind at
lunchtime and the hunger that knots his stomach just before break, wonders if
Izaya is warm, if Izaya is safe, if Izaya ate lunch at all without Shizuo there
to look after him. His distraction increases all day, sweeping over all his
attention with the advent of the afternoon, and by the time they’re released
from class Shizuo barely has the focus to spare to wave a goodbye to Shinra
before he bolts for the front gates of the school with the very first of the
students most anxious to return home.
It’s not a large distance. Shizuo knows that as he clears the gates, as he
turns down the sidewalk in the direction of the middle school instead of the
route that will take him home. He had planned to walk, to pace out the distance
over the handful of minutes it will take, to catch Izaya on his way home rather
than trying to beat him to the front of the school. But his heart is racing,
his shoulders tense on unjustified concern, and all his intention evaporates
with the empty line of the sidewalk in front of him. He starts off at a fast
walk, taking long strides over the first block, but he’s jogging before he’s
halfway through the second, trading the breathlessness of adrenaline for that
of physical exertion instead. He means to maintain a steady pace, to arrive at
the middle school only a little bit winded; but his heart is pounding too fast
for him to catch his breath, and he thinks he might be speeding up as he draws
closer, until by the time he rounds the corner to come into sight of the middle
school he can barely fill his lungs with a full breath for how frantically his
heart is beating. There are more students, now, a whole flood of familiar dark
coats spilling past the gates of the school as Shizuo draws closer, and for a
moment Shizuo is afraid he’s missed him, that he’ll have to work through the
wall of students to track Izaya down before he makes it all the way home. But
then there’s movement at the gate, a student emerging past the barrier of the
walls in a gap between two other clusters of middle schoolers, and Shizuo
doesn’t know how he knows but he does, his attention is catching and clinging
to the student’s hunched shoulders even before he’s recognized the sharp edges
of Izaya’s profile and the set weight of a frown at his lips. Izaya’s stepping
out onto the sidewalk, he’s starting to turn away, and Shizuo speaks without
thinking, calling “Izaya-kun!” as a shout on a lungful of air he didn’t know he
had available.
Izaya turns faster than Shizuo thought possible. His entire forward momentum
ceases immediately, his weight turning on a heel as his head whips around to
track Shizuo’s approach. The frown at his lips evaporates, his mouth dropping
open on shock to match the startled-wide of his eyes as he sees the other, and
that’s all Shizuo has time to notice before his lungs abruptly protest the
total lack of oxygen in them. He draws to a halt in front of Izaya, bracing his
hands at his hips and tipping his head back as he gasps for air to replenish
his current lack of it, his head spinning with the sudden cessation of
movement.
“Senpai,” Izaya says, sounding utterly floored as Shizuo has never before heard
him, and then he goes completely silent, as if he’s forgotten all his usual
quips along with Shizuo’s graduation to high school. There’s nothing to fill
the space between them but the gasp of Shizuo’s breathing coming hard in his
chest, the rush of air in his lungs as he pants his way back to some clarity of
vision; even when he takes a breath and looks down to finally meet Izaya’s gaze
the other doesn’t speak at all. Izaya’s still staring at him, still with that
same startled-open expression as if he’s never seen Shizuo before, or as if
Shizuo has teleported himself across a distance of continents rather than
sprinted over the intervening distance between the high school and the middle
school. There’s something soft behind his eyes, some unfettered surprise
showing in the part of his lips, and for just a moment Shizuo is reminded of
that first Christmas, that moment when he lost the rhythm of his heart to the
shape of Izaya’s unstudied smile behind the shadow of his hair.
There’s a thousand things Shizuo could say. I missed you is the obvious one,
are you alright? the one more immediate to his thoughts; and then there’s the
constant refrain pressing against his chest, I love you, I love you, I love
you, like a chant that beats in time with Shizuo’s heart whenever he thinks of
the other. He takes a breath, feels the rush of air over his tongue, and what
he says is “You didn’t wait for me to meet you,” as harsh as if they had any
such understanding before this exact moment.
Izaya’s lashes flutter, a giveaway for surprise as clear as the tremor still
running against his mouth; but all he says is “Did I not?” as if he really did
forget some agreement, like he’s playing along with Shizuo’s assumption without
comment. “I had a lot of other things on my mind.”
Shizuo steps forward, taking the lead down the sidewalk so he can watch where
he’s going instead of trapping himself with staring at the color in Izaya’s
eyes, at the tension against Izaya’s lips. “You care that much about school now
that you’re a third year?” he asks, feeling the words like self-made comfort on
his tongue, like a countdown for the year apart already running itself towards
the relief of zero. “I didn’t think anything could make you care about classes
that much.”
“Of course,” Izaya says. Shizuo glances back at him for a moment, long enough
to see the quirk of a smile at the corner of the other’s mouth, long enough to
see the wind catch and ruffle through Izaya’s hair; then he looks back to the
sidewalk, his heart skidding faster even though he’s walking even slower than
usual with Izaya next to him. “I have to start thinking about my future now.”
Shizuo’s laugh comes suddenly, startled out of him as much as it is a
deliberate action. Izaya is very close next to him; they’re walking near enough
for the other’s dark sleeve to catch against Shizuo’s with each forward step
they take. If Shizuo doesn’t look down he can imagine they’re walking back from
the same school, that this is just the conclusion of a day spent in each
other’s company rather than the first he’s seen of the other boy all day.
“You don’t have to worry,” Shizuo says, keeping his gaze fixed on the sidewalk
rather than meeting Izaya’s gaze while his cheeks go warmer in spite of the
spring-cool chill in the air. “Raijin’s not that hard to get into, you know.”
Shizuo’s jumping to conclusions. There’s still a year to go, still months of
time for Izaya to decide where he wants to go, to dedicate himself to his
studies if he decides to aim for a better school than the one Shizuo is
attending, if he decides to abandon Shizuo to a full three years without him
instead of just one. The statement is as much a question as a declaration,
almost twists itself high and pleading on Shizuo’s tongue. But there’s barely a
pause before Izaya laughs, “Well obviously, seeing as you made it in,” with
implicit agreement so clear under the words it steals Shizuo’s barely-steadied
breath away again. Shizuo looks sideways, his attention pulled by the lilt of
Izaya’s voice, and Izaya’s watching him, his eyes dark and mouth tense against
the remnants of the laugh still in his throat.
“Brat,” Shizuo says, his voice wobbling and trying to crack in the middle as he
reaches out to press his fingers into Izaya’s hair, capitulating to the
temptation of catching the soft strands tangling in the spring breeze against
his palm. “When are you going to learn proper respect for your senpai?”
Izaya leans sideways, his elbow catching to dig sharply against Shizuo’s side.
“With you as such an excellent role model, I’m sure I’ll figure it out in a few
decades.” Shizuo hisses at the bruising weight of Izaya shoving against him,
but he doesn’t move away, and he can’t fight his smile back into anything but
warmth glowing all across his face.
He rather likes the idea of years spent with Izaya at his side.
***** Worry *****
High school turns out to be more fun than Shizuo expected it to be.
He doesn’t realize it all at once. For the first several days it’s all he can
do to keep his attention on the present moment instead of wandering to fret
over the subject of Izaya’s actions, or worse to daydream over the color of his
hair; lunches are to be waited through more than enjoyed, classwork only a
minimal distraction for the constant focus of his thoughts. But after that
first day Izaya is always waiting at the front gates of the middle school when
Shizuo arrives, his shoulders tipped back against the wall and his smile bright
enough for Shizuo to recognize from a block away, and as days go by without
major incident from that front Shizuo finds his stress about it during the rest
of the daytime hours eases as well. He has studying to focus on, and Shinra to
spend lunches with, and then halfway through the second week Shizuo partners up
with one of the other students in his class for an assignment and finds
friendship to be a simple matter of exchanging names and a handshake instead of
navigating the constant tension that crackles in the air when Izaya’s around.
Kadota is nice, easy to talk to and calm in a way that Shizuo finds reassuring,
and he gets along as easily with Shinra as with everyone else, in spite of the
other’s less-than-typical personality. With two people to sit with lunches
become fun, or at least something Shizuo can look forward to through the
morning before beginning on the daily countdown to the end of class and the
walk home with Izaya that lasts longer and longer with each day that goes by;
it’s pleasant to listen to the conversation between the other two, easy to let
the sound of their voices wash over him as he works through the lunch his
mother made for him the night before.
“I want to meet this Celty,” Kadota is saying today, leaning back with his
shoulders against the links of the fence as he watches Shinra. Shinra’s been
rambling as he does whenever given half a chance, extolling Celty’s virtues
with Kadota’s patience and Shizuo’s full mouth to let him continue
uninterrupted for several minutes. “She sounds cool.”
“She is cool,” Shinra agrees immediately, barely giving Kadota time to finish
his sentence before he’s confirming the sentiment. “Don’t think I’m going to
let you steal her away from me, though, Kadota-kun!”
“I’m not planning on trying,” Kadota tells him. “It sounds like you two have
something special, I wouldn’t try to get in the way of that.”
“Good,” Shinra says, sounding more chipper than relieved, as if the threat of
his last statement was a joke and not the sincerity Shizuo knows it to be. “As
long as we understand each other!” Then he turns to Shizuo, his attention
veering sideways with barely a breath of hesitation, and says, “She says she
wants to meet you too, Shizuo. And Orihara-kun.”
Shizuo blinks. “Oh.” It’s a little weird to hear that someone is interested in
him without the assumed construct of a fight around it; Shizuo’s shoulders
start to tense in expectation of the violence that has faded from his life with
his advent of the bleached-pale hair he’s just now starting to recognize in his
own reflection. “Sure. I’ll bring him next weekend, we can all hang out
downtown or something.”
“Who’s Orihara-kun?” Kadota asks with vaguely curiosity.
Shizuo opens his mouth to reply with -- something, he doesn’t even know what -
- but Shinra beats him to it, talking with the rapidfire speech that is
reminiscent of the pace of Izaya’s without any of the lilting tone that always
sets Shizuo’s blood to fire in his veins. “He’s Shizuo’s best friend!”
Shizuo doesn’t know why he blushes. Shinra’s statement is patently true, after
all; he’s hardly likely to gain traction on any kind of a denial, even if he
wanted to make the attempt. But something about the casual declaration hunches
embarrassment into his shoulders, burns with the heat of self-consciousness
across his cheeks, and when Kadota says “Really?” all Shizuo can manage is an
“Mm” that sounds as much like embarrassment as agreement.
“They’ve only known each other for a few years,” Shinra continues, with all the
self-assurance of a man whose primary relationship has lasted for over a decade
already. “But they were joined at the hip in middle school. It’s still a little
weird to see Shizuo on his own here at Raijin, I keep expecting Orihara-kun to
turn up with him.”
“That’s next year,” Shizuo says down to his lunch, not lifting his head to see
the way Shinra is blinking at him or to meet the calm consideration he can feel
Kadota offering. “You’ll both get to see as much of him as you want when he
graduates.”
“Is he coming here too?” Shinra asks, and then fast, before Shizuo has a chance
to answer: “I thought he would. He must be lonely without you.”
“He’s fine,” Shizuo says, more from wishing it to be true than any real
assurance of honesty in the words. “He’ll be getting into knifefights with
yakuza whether I’m there or not.”
“Woah,” Kadota says. “And he’s in middle school?”
“Yeah.” Shizuo takes a bite of his lunch, chews and swallows with deliberate
slowness to buy himself time to compose his expression. When he looks up he
feels almost calm, like the burn across his cheeks has been swept away by the
chill bite of the air still clinging to the last cool of winter. “I dunno. I
guess maybe not knifefights. It’s not like he has a weapon or anything.”
“He might,” Shinra says brightly, and Kadota and Shizuo both turn to look at
him as one. Shinra looks from one to the other, his eyes wide and innocent
behind his glasses and his mouth curving on the bright of that everpresent
smile that holds to his expression regardless of the subject at hand. “I’m sure
he has contacts that could get him something if he wanted it. Maybe he even has
a gun!”
“No,” Shizuo growls. “No, he does not have a gun, don’t be ridiculous.”
Shinra shrugs, still smiling as he reaches for a bite from his own lunch
without looking. “I’m just observing the possibility!” he says, and then,
without so much as a pause for breath before the subject change: “He must
really miss you,” without glancing up to see the way Shizuo’s entire expression
goes blank in the most transparent attempt at self-preservation he’s ever
attempted. “He always looks so lost when you’re not around.”
There’s a moment of absolute silence. Shizuo almost imagines he can hear each
second ticking past to weight Shinra’s words with more meaning than was
originally intended; but he can’t speak for a moment, can’t find voice enough
to trust with coherency or composure. Kadota glances at him, looks away and
back down to the distraction of his lunch; but still Shizuo can’t find his
breath again, can’t figure out something reasonably off-hand to offer in
response to this.
“He’ll be fine,” he manages, finally, sounding strained and weird and breathy
in a way that makes his cheeks burn hot with the absolute giveaway of the sound
in his throat. “It’s only a year.”
“That’s true,” Shinra says, as quick to give over this point as he was to bring
it up. “And he’ll be at school the whole time. How much trouble can he get into
at middle school?”
Enough, Shizuo wants to say, the certainty of the word rooted in two years of
experience and a bone-deep knowledge that Izaya is the kind of person who can
find trouble anywhere he looks for it. For a moment Shizuo wishes he was back
at middle school, in the halls so familiar they have become boring, in the
classes filled with information he’s already learned; but at least Izaya
wouldn’t be alone, at least Shizuo would know the other is okay more than once
a day after classes let out.
“It’ll be fine.”
It’s not Shinra speaking. Kadota has been so quiet that Shizuo nearly forgot he
was there, has all but dismissed the whole of his surroundings for the rising
tension of stress along his spine. When he looks over the other boy is taking a
bite of his lunch, his head ducked as if the food in front of him holds far
more interest for him than whatever Shizuo’s reaction to his statement is. It
reminds Shizuo of Kasuka, just for a moment of time; but then Kadota swallows,
and looks up, and there’s a focus in his eyes that Shizuo has never seen in
Kasuka’s for any subject.
“I don’t know Orihara-kun,” Kadota says, looking at Shizuo so the words come
out for him rather than a general statement. “So I guess I could be wrong. But
I think everything’ll be alright.” He shrugs, an easy raise of one shoulder
like he’s giving an unvoiced demurral for his opinion. “Things usually do turn
out okay, in the end.”
Shizuo takes a breath. “Yeah,” he says, and he only intended it to be polite
agreement but the word comes out more sincere than he expected it to, like his
voice is responding to Kadota’s reassurance in advance of his thoughts. When he
blinks the frantic edge of his worry eases, fading out of the irrational panic
that had gripped him for a moment with a force like that of the anger that
almost never seizes him, anymore. “It’ll be okay.”
Shizuo’s not sure he quite believes the words; he does know Izaya, after all,
and that’s stress enough to make anyone paranoid. But Kadota nods, and Shinra
swings the conversation back around to arranging a meeting with Celty, and when
Shizuo takes another bite of his lunch he doesn’t even notice how relaxed his
shoulders are.
***** Soft *****
The message comes in during the last half-hour of class.
Shizuo doesn’t read it. He doesn’t even know it’s there; his cell phone is
never turned on to ring out loud, and he shuts off the vibration feature when
he gets to school in the morning to avoid the faint hum of noise that comes
with an incoming call. It’s better to keep his mind on class, anyway, better to
avoid the distraction that comes with knowing there’s a message waiting for
him; so he focuses on class, and finishes the test they’re meant to be taking
as the last task of the day, and doesn’t see the notification light on his
phone until he’s stepping into his shoes in the entryway and turning to make
his way to the front gate of the school. He’s thinking about Izaya, as he
always is, looking forward over the next few minutes of walking to seeing the
other boy in front of the gates of the middle school; and then he sees the
flashing red at the corner of his phone, and the notification of a missed
message from Izaya-kun, and Shizuo nearly drops his phone entirely in the first
surge of adrenaline.
He’s moving towards the gate without pausing, before he’s even had a chance to
read the message; in the span of time it takes him to get the text open he’s
run through five different scenarios in his head, is ready to break into a run
as soon as he finds out where he needs to be. But there’s no plea for help on
the screen in front of him, no directions or address of one of the shadier
buildings downtown; just one word, Wait clear on his screen and absent any
additional context for Shizuo to parse. Shizuo frowns at it, trying to figure
out the meaning with just the single command to go on, but there’s no traction
to be gained on unknown context or any kind of inside joke he can recall. He’s
still turning over possibilities when he steps clear of the front gate, still
frowning at the phone as he opens his keyboard to demand more information; and
then there’s a touch at his shoulder, the weight of something cold against his
coat, and Shizuo jerks around in instinctive reaction before he has time to
parse what’s touching him.
“What the fuck,” he starts, frustration coming easy on the heels of his
concern; and then he sees a bright smile, and dark eyes, and all the tension
drains out of him all at once even before Izaya has said anything. “Izaya-kun.”
Izaya’s mouth tugs wider, his head tipping to the side to cast his eyes into
shadows. “Hey there,” he purrs. “Miss me?”
Yes, Shizuo thinks. I’m always missing you. “What are you doing here?” he
demands. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
Izaya huffs a tiny, unvoiced laugh. “We had a half day,” he announces. He has a
can of soda in his hand; when he tosses it up to catch it again Shizuo realizes
what it was that was on his shoulder for a moment, the weight of the can
resting against him in the moment before he turned and left it to topple into
Izaya’s waiting hands. “I thought I’d come to meet you for once.”
Shizuo looks at the angle of Izaya’s fingers bracing at the can, blinks at the
dark of the coat around his shoulders familiar from Christmas rather than from
middle school. The soft of the fur at the hood is catching against his hair,
pressing close against the back of his neck to pin windswept dark against pale
skin. “You ditched class.”
Izaya laughs, the sound liquid with heat on his tongue. “Maybe.” His wrist
angles, his arm shifts, and the can flies towards Shizuo’s face, pushed off the
tips of Izaya’s fingers a heartbeat before Izaya tells him to “Catch.”
Shizuo lifts his hand and catches the weight of the aluminum against his palm
without looking away from Izaya’s smirk. “You shouldn’t ditch,” he tells him,
knowing even as he gives the words voice that they’re a useless attempt. The
soda can is pressurized under his touch, promising a spray of sugary liquid if
he’s careless about opening it; when he cracks the lid it’s only by a half-
inch, just enough to let the hiss of bubbles spill past the opening and onto
the sidewalk rather than over his fingers. It takes a few seconds before the
pressure has decreased enough for him to tilt the can back to upright and open
it the rest of the way; the soda is still cold when he takes a swallow, the can
chill with condensation against the warmth in the air. “Especially as a third-
year.”
Izaya shrugs away this concern. “I’m going to pass my exams,” he says, pushing
himself up to perch at the edge of the planter alongside the school gates. When
he looks at Shizuo his eyes are half-lidded to dark, his lashes turning the
color of his gaze into an invitation. “I don’t see why the rest of it matters,
senpai.”
“School is important,” Shizuo says, the statement coming easy and unthinking as
he looks at the angle of Izaya’s wrist bracing him at the lip of the planter.
He takes a step closer, off the main pathway of the sidewalk and the spill of
students emerging from the school gates, and leans back alongside Izaya with as
much nonchalance as he can manage. Their elbows are close enough to touch, if
Shizuo shifted his weight at all; he can smell that odd spiciness in the air
again, the suggestion of scent that always hovers in Izaya’s vicinity and
flickers warmth into Shizuo’s blood. “It’s not just about exams.”
“Isn’t it?” Izaya asks. Shizuo shifts the can of soda from one hand to the
other, aware as he does so of the way his sleeve catches against Izaya’s
braced-out arm as he brings soda-sticky fingers to his mouth to lick them
clean. “I thought the whole point of middle school was to get accepted into a
good high school.”
“It is,” Shizuo admits. There’s pressure against his chest, the threat of words
he’s not quite sure he wants to say; he takes another drink of the soda in his
hand, tries to remember how to swallow with his heart pounding on the anxious
desire for reassurance. It feels awkward, a strange struggle with himself for a
perfectly ordinary action, but Izaya doesn’t comment, and adrenaline is
spilling up Shizuo’s throat and over his tongue with honesty he’s not yet sure
he wants to offer. “Raijin’s not that good of a school, though.” There’s a beat
of silence, a chance for Izaya to respond that he doesn’t take; Shizuo glances
at him, just for a moment, just long enough to see the steady attention in the
other’s gaze before he turns his head and clears his throat to roughness. “You
could probably get in somewhere better if you tried.”
There’s another pause. Shizuo feels like it’s forever, with the thud of his
heart going too-fast in his chest to parcel out the seconds; but when Izaya
offers “Come on, senpai” it’s easy, as casual as if they’re having an utterly
everyday conversation instead of discussing Izaya’s future for the next three
years. “As if I could leave you to your reign of terror without coming to see
at least some of it.”
Shizuo glances sideways again, his head turning too quickly for him to decide
whether he wants to offer the giveaway of the movement or not. Izaya is
watching him, his gaze unwavering on Shizuo’s face; he’s still facing the
street, his arms locked out to brace him in place where he sits, but the corner
of his mouth is turned up, his lips curving on a smile like he’s trying to hold
back the soft of the expression and not quite succeeding. It makes Shizuo’s
heart skid, warms all his body like he’s glowing into pure sunlight, and for a
moment he’s smiling, helpless to the force of the reassurance that hits him
before he can muster a frown to go with the rough edge of his voice and cover
the tremor of relief in his throat. “It’s not like that,” he tells Izaya,
shoving against the other’s leg with a force that has no sincerity at all
behind it and just makes Izaya grin the wider. “I hardly ever get into fights,
now.”
“How lucky for everyone,” Izaya drawls. “I told you the hair was a good idea.”
He lifts his hand from the edge of the wall and reaches out to fit his fingers
into Shizuo’s hair; Shizuo flinches sideways, his whole body tensing on the
electricity that comes with Izaya’s touch, but Izaya just tightens his fingers
to make a fist of his hair rather than letting Shizuo break free. He’s watching
his hand instead of Shizuo’s face, frowning at the pale of the bleached-out
strands so he doesn’t see the way Shizuo is looking at him, doesn’t see the
brief involuntary flicker of the other’s attention down to the tension at
Izaya’s lips.
“The roots are growing out,” Izaya declares, his thumb pressing close against
Shizuo’s scalp. “You should bleach it again this weekend.”
“You should,” Shizuo growls, a weak comeback made weaker by the way his throat
is thrumming on heat and the shivering fear of meeting rejection for this
offer. He reaches up for Izaya’s wrist, tightens his fingers close around the
heat radiating off bruise-delicate skin; when he pulls the other’s hold free he
can feel the tendons of Izaya’s wrist shifting under his thumb, can feel the
fragility of brittle bone pressing hard against his palm. “It’s a pain to keep
up with it and it was your idea in the first place, you should at least help me
do some of the work.”
“You could always cut it off instead.” Izaya pushes hard against Shizuo’s hold
until Shizuo has to let him go or run the risk of accidental bruises; as soon
as his wrist is free he’s reaching out across Shizuo’s body, casually pressing
close against the other as he stretches for the can of soda in Shizuo’s far
hand. “Just get a buzzcut if you hate it so much.”
Shizuo grabs at Izaya’s shoulder, half to hold him away from his soda and half
to keep him where he is, to pull him closer, to press him hard against the blue
of Shizuo’s uniform coat. “I never said that,” he protests. “I’m not going to
cut all my hair off.”
Izaya’s laugh is twice as warm from this close up. “I never figured you to be
vain about your looks, Shizuo-senpai. It seems odd for a monster to care that
much about what he looks like.”
“That again,” Shizuo sighs, mock resignation on his tongue as his heart tries
to race itself to some unseen finish line inside his chest. “You are never
going to stop being a brat, are you?” Izaya just laughs again, the sound
purring against the front of Shizuo’s jacket, and Shizuo can’t find the self-
restraint to hold back the smile that spreads across his face in answer.
The collar of Izaya’s coat is soft under his fingers.
***** Glimpse *****
Shinra is crying when Shizuo comes back into the living room.
This is less shocking than it ought to be. If it were Kadota Shizuo would be
concerned; if it were Izaya he would be panicked. But Shinra lying on the floor
wailing about his eternal heartbreak to the ceiling is a relatively ordinary
occurrence, even if the handful of beers Kadota brought with him to their
informal Christmas party have caused him to attain an extra level of shrillness
that makes Shizuo flinch as he steps back through the doorway. Kadota is
leaning towards Shinra’s sprawl across the floor, offering what awkward comfort
a shoulder pat can provide to the ongoing romantic troubles of over a decade,
but it’s Izaya and the bright flash of amusement at his mouth that catches and
holds Shizuo’s attention.
“What did you do this time?” Shizuo asks, aiming the words at Izaya instead of
to the incoherent mess Shinra is making of himself on the floor.
“Nothing,” Izaya says, keeping his attention on Shinra as Shizuo sits against
the edge of the kotatsu next to him and slides his feet into the warmth.
Kadota’s sitting crosslegged next to Shinra, apparently comfortable enough in
the ambient temperature of the room to give up the crowded footspace under the
kotatsu; there’s just the angle of Izaya’s legs spread out into the space to
interrupt Shizuo’s movement, the resistance of the other’s ankles against his
feet tingling familiar tension against Shizuo’s spine like a touch dragging
across his skin. “You know how Shinra gets about Celty.” He lifts the can in
his hand to his lips, catching the edge of the aluminum against his mouth;
Shizuo watches Izaya’s lips fit to the metallic shine, sees the press of damp
catch and cling to the surface, and it’s just as the other’s throat works on a
swallow that Shizuo realizes it’s his own can in Izaya’s hold.
“Don’t be a pest,” he says, kicking against Izaya’s ankle more for the show of
irritation than the fact of it. “And that’s mine, get your own.” Izaya lowers
the can from his mouth and cuts a glance sideways through his lashes at Shizuo;
Shizuo can feel a shiver of adrenaline purr up his spine, threatening his
cheeks with a flush before he looks down and reaches out to pull the can free
of Izaya’s hold.
“I don’t want a second one all to myself,” Izaya protests, his fingers
tightening under Shizuo’s hold instead of pulling away. “I just wanted a sip of
yours.”
“You’ve had half of it yourself already.” Shizuo pulls hard, dragging the can
free of Izaya’s hold and trying very hard to not flex his fingers against the
afterimage-heat of Izaya’s skin against his.
“You weren’t drinking it.” Izaya’s voice is mocking, swinging high and teasing
at the edges; he’s still looking at Shizuo through his lashes, still smiling
that lopsided smile that always makes Shizuo’s heart feel like it’s trying to
rattle itself free of the cage of his body. Shizuo doesn’t dare keep looking at
the shadow of Izaya’s eyes behind his lashes, at the curve of Izaya’s lips
printed with the damp from the edge of his drink; he lifts the can instead,
tipping his head back to hide the embarrassed flush across his cheeks and to
buy himself a moment of composure while he downs the rest of the beer. It’s
bitter on his tongue, catching sour at the back of his mouth in a way that
makes him grimace; but the edge of the can is warm, Shizuo can almost imagine
the suggestion of licorice printed there by Izaya’s lips at the metal. The
thought does nothing to offer him composure; by the time he sets the empty can
back down on the kotatsu it’s hard even to catch his breath for how rapidly his
pulse is going.
“Impressive,” Izaya drawls, reaching out to flick the can over onto its side.
“We’ll make an alcoholic of you yet, senpai.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo snaps, his voice trying to break in his throat. “It’s one
beer.”
“You’re looking awfully flushed,” Izaya tells him, and Shizuo can feel heat
flare blistering under his skin like it’s answering the call of Izaya’s voice.
Izaya lifts his fingers from the table, stretches out across the gap between
them, and then his touch is brushing against Shizuo’s face, his fingertips
dragging gentle just across the other’s skin. “And you feel warm.”
“Brat,” Shizuo manages, the word familiar enough to topple off his lips even as
his heart skids out in his chest. He reaches up to grab at Izaya’s wrist and
tug that near-painful electricity of contact away from his cheek, though he’s
not sure how much good it’s doing for his flush. “You’ve had as much as I have,
do you feel drunk?” His skin is burning, his whole body feels like it’s
glowing; but Izaya’s hand is like ice in his, his fingers so cold even Shizuo’s
self-consciousness gives way to concern as he looks away from the dark focus of
Izaya’s eyes to the angle of his hands. “You’re freezing, it’s no wonder I feel
warm.”
“It’s fine,” Izaya says, “it’s winter, it’s supposed to be cold” but Shizuo is
barely listening to him anymore; he’s tangled around the angle of Izaya’s
fingers in his hold, his attention caught and held by the unresisting tension
of the other’s hand in his. Izaya’s skin is chilled as if with ice, his fingers
stiff under Shizuo’s touch; but he’s not snatching his hand away, and Shizuo
can see color rising over the pale tracery of veins in the other’s fingers the
longer he maintains his hold. His hand flexes, tightening on some instinct to
hold closer, and Izaya’s fingers shift against each other as Shizuo’s thumb
slides over the delicate line of bone just under skin. It’s like holding blown
glass, like pressing his fingers carefully around something fragile enough to
give way at a breath; and then Shizuo realizes what he’s doing, has the thought
I’m holding his hand, and drops his grip as suddenly as if the chill of Izaya’s
skin is an open flame.
“You’ve been inside for hours,” he says, speaking to the slack curl of Izaya’s
fingers against the kotatsu instead of looking up to meet his gaze, and then he
lifts his head and pulls his attention to the other two in the room through
sheer force of will and desperate need for another conversational topic while
his mind reels over the shape of Izaya’s hand in his, the texture of Izaya’s
skin against his, the submissive give of Izaya’s fingers to his own. Shizuo
wonders if he could have kept holding on, wonders how long Izaya would have let
him continue before sliding his hand away. He wishes he hadn’t let go. “Calm
down, Shinra.”
Shinra’s wailing cuts off in the span of one word and the next. “You don’t
understand,” he says, pushing himself to sit up and looking back to meet
Shizuo’s gaze. “It’s just wrong, to be separated from the one you love at
Christmas.”
Shizuo’s whole body flashes hot, as if this statement was aimed directly at him
instead of a general commentary; then Izaya laughs, and Shizuo finds the
composure to sigh through put-upon resignation over the too-fast thud of his
heart as Kadota offers “Is it?” with good-natured tolerance.
“It is.” Shizuo can hear Shinra’s tone dropping off the edge of misery and into
the self-centered happiness he can always find in his own imagination. “I know
you aren’t lucky enough to have Celty in your lives the way I have her in mine,
but love is a wonderful thing!”
“You always make it seem very appealing,” Izaya laughs. When Shizuo glances at
him he has his head propped on the support of one hand and a smile at the
corner of his mouth as he watches Shinra.
“Yes,” Shinra agrees. “I just wish I could spend the holiday with the person I
love.”
“It’s good to know you value our company,” Kadota deadpans.
“What?” Shinra sounds legitimately confused and looks more so as he reels in
his attention from his fantasy-dazed stare at the ceiling to blink around the
room at them. “I wouldn’t begrudge any of you leaving to spend time with the
one you love.”
“Sorry,” Kadota offers. “Nothing to report on that front, though I’ll be sure
to tell you first.”
Shizuo knows where this is going. He can feel his shoulders tensing on stress
at what is to come, can feel the desperate need for a lie making his tongue
clumsy and awkward in his mouth. But he’s watching Kadota, and he’s listening
for Shinra, and he’s not ready at all for the source of the question when it
comes.
“What about Shizuo-senpai?”
Shizuo looks back to Izaya, his awareness of the rest of the room giving way at
once. Izaya’s gazing at him again, his head tipped to the side and his mouth
dragging on a smirk that doesn’t touch his eyes at all. When he speaks his
voice is sharp, carrying an unstated threat Shizuo can’t make sense of.
“Haven’t you managed to find yourself a girlfriend yet?”
Shizuo feels faintly dizzy, wonders if it’s the beer finally affecting him
after an hour of nothing at all. “What?”
“A girlfriend.” Izaya’s pulling the word long in his throat; it would sound
like teasing if it weren’t for the attention in his eyes and the way he looks
away as Shizuo stares at him, the way he reaches out to push against the empty
can on the table rather than meet the other’s gaze. “Don’t you have one?”
There’s a flicker of anger in Shizuo’s chest, the flutter of irritation formed
on confusion and uncertainty and embarrassment all wrapped around something too
small for him to make sense of, something so fragile he can’t gain traction on
it with the distraction of the can glinting light at his face. “Of course I
don’t,” he says, honesty coming harsher than he intended in his throat, and he
reaches out to close his fingers hard on the can and stop the flash of the
reflection into his eyes. The aluminum crumples, the metal giving way to his
careless grip; Shizuo looks back at it, frowning at the give of the can while
his heart pounds itself into something almost like suspicion, while hope and
jealousy prickle equal measures of electricity out across his skin. “Why, do
you have one?”
There’s a pause. Shizuo’s heart won’t stop pounding in his chest; it’s hard to
breathe, hard to fit the basic motions of existence around the tension
straining impossibly taut over the silence of Izaya’s not-answer. He’s
desperate for the reply, terrified to hear it, bracing with all his strength
against the shock of whatever Izaya will say in response. Maybe it was too
forward of a question, maybe it finally gave his own feelings away; but it was
Izaya who asked him first, Izaya who pushed for a confession Shizuo can’t give,
who insisted on the existence of a girlfriend Shizuo doesn’t have and doesn’t
want. Maybe Izaya is waiting for more, maybe he’s angry, maybe he’s startled
into silence by the accidental implication of Shizuo’s strained tone; and
finally Shizuo can’t take the tension anymore, and he lifts his gaze from the
table to meet Izaya’s stare.
Izaya is watching him. There’s a smile at his lips, the outline of what Shizuo
thinks was a laugh from his first taunting question; but his eyes are endlessly
dark and softer than Shizuo has ever seen them, his lashes heavy over his gaze
to weight it to something layered over with meaning, until his expression looks
more pleading than anything else. It’s as if he’s waiting for Shizuo to say
something, waiting for Shizuo to take some action; Shizuo takes a breath, fills
his lungs with the air to speak, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say but
he knows it will be a relief, can feel the satisfaction of finally saying
somethingthreatening the back of his tongue even as he opens his mouth. And
then Izaya blinks, and the soft in his eyes vanishes to the unreadable shadows
that are usually there, and he says “Come on, Shizuo-senpai,” with his voice so
bright on repressed laughter it cuts off Shizuo’s unvoiced confession even
before Izaya kicks his heel bruise-hard against the other’s thigh. “I could
never choose just one human to love more than the others, that wouldn’t be fair
to the rest of them.”
There’s still something there. Shizuo can see it in the shift of Izaya’s lashes
when he blinks, can read it from the tension of his wrists bracing back against
the floor as he tips his weight back. The statement feels like a dare, like a
taunt meant to draw Shizuo’s frustration more than offered in sincerity, and
Shizuo wants to accept, wants to throw himself head-first into whatever Izaya
is daring him to do just to see what will happen. But:
“Or to the one, either,” Kadota says, the sound of his voice reminding Shizuo
abruptly of the other people in the room, and when Shinra chirps a laugh Izaya
looks away from Shizuo’s gaze, turning his head to grin at the other two with
as much careless ease as if he really is perfectly comfortable, as if the
unanswered question hanging in the space between he and Shizuo isn’t there at
all. It’s almost convincing, would be enough to persuade Shizuo if he were
someone else, if he didn’t have years of experience to go on; but he knows
better than to listen to Izaya’s voice or look at Izaya’s smile for signs of
strain, knows better than to believe the appearance of calm amusement the other
is so ready to adopt. The giveaway is in Izaya’s wrists, in the flex of his
fingers against the floor and the sharp angle of his arm as he holds himself
up; if Shizuo traces it up he can even see the tension hunching against the
other’s shoulders, rumpling his collar up close against the dark soft of his
hair as he watches Shinra push himself to seated to resume his previous failed
attempt at coherency.
Izaya doesn’t look back at him, doesn’t give Shizuo another chance to pick
apart the strange softness behind his gaze. It doesn’t make a difference.
Shizuo’s heart is already beating doubletime just on the possibility of
reciprocation he thinks he might have glimpsed behind the saturated crimson of
Izaya’s eyes.
***** Lingering *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter contains (solo) sexual content involving a character
     under the age of eighteen. Please feel free to skip this chapter if
     you would prefer to avoid such.
“Are you sure?” Shizuo asks for the third time since he followed Izaya to the
entryway, while the other works through the process of getting himself wrapped
back up to Shizuo’s satisfaction before braving the walk back to his house. “I
don’t mind.”
“Stop fretting,” Izaya tells him without looking up from putting his shoes on.
“You let Dotachin and Shinra leave without fussing over them, do you really
think I’m less capable of taking care of myself than they are?”
“It’s not about that,” Shizuo tells him. “It’s cold out there.”
Izaya huffs a laugh as he tugs his second shoe on with a quick pull. “Yes,” he
agrees. “What exactly do you think you walking me back will do against the
cold?” He looks up through his hair and catches Shizuo’s gaze for a moment of
smirking amusement. “Are you just afraid I’m going to collapse on the way home
and freeze to death where I fall?”
“No,” Shizuo growls, although the idea is less ridiculous in his head than
Izaya probably intends it to sound. “I’m just saying I wouldn’t mind keeping
you company.”
Izaya rolls his eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he says, and lifts a hand towards Shizuo.
Shizuo takes it without thinking, curling his fingers around the warmth of
Izaya’s with the gentle care that is becoming second nature to him now, and
Izaya’s grip closes tight around his wrist just before the other drags at the
support of Shizuo’s arm to pull himself to his feet. Shizuo stumbles at the
unexpected force, has to step forward to catch his balance, and Izaya is right
there in front of him, not leaning back at all as Shizuo tips forward in an
effort to steady himself. Their foreheads almost touch, their hair almost
tangles, and then Shizuo catches himself and pulls back in a rush, his heart
racing at the too-close contact before his mind has even decided what he wants
to do.
Izaya’s mouth tightens at the corner, his lips dragging up into a smirk as
Shizuo watches. “I told you you had too much to drink,” he says, purring the
words until they sound more like an invitation than mockery, and then he’s
letting Shizuo’s wrist go and sliding his hand free before Shizuo can think to
stop him, turning as easily towards the door as if he doesn’t feel the
crackling electricity trying to fix Shizuo unmoving where he stands. “If you
can’t even stand up straight you’re totally useless to me as an escort. I’d
just have to walk you back again as soon as we got to my house.”
“I’m fine,” Shizuo snaps, stepping forward to follow Izaya to the door and
catch the edge of it as Izaya pulls it open to let the chill of the air outside
spill into the house. “You had as much as I did.”
“Maybe I just hold my alcohol better,” Izaya suggests, flashing his teeth into
a smile that says he knows how ridiculous this claim is even before Shizuo
rolls his eyes by way of answer. “Don’t worry, Shizuo-senpai.” He moves
forward, drawing his hand free of the door so he can step out into the dim
chill of the evening air. “I’ll text you if I need rescue.”
“Let me know when you’re home,” Shizuo tells him as Izaya draws the hood of his
coat up over his dark hair and pauses to look back. His cheeks are still
flushed with lingering warmth, his mouth still curving on a smile; for a moment
Shizuo’s whole body flickers with electricity, his blood flaring hot at the
dark of Izaya’s eyes and the smooth curve of his throat down into the collar of
his shirt. His attention flickers down, landing to tangle helplessly at the
curve of Izaya’s mouth, and for a heartbeat of time the lateness of the hour
and the faint suggestion of intoxication in his veins whisper impulse along his
spine, breathe the possibility of stepping closer, of leaning in, of catching
the warm damp of Izaya’s mouth against his to see if the other’s lips carry the
same electric charge his gaze sometimes seems to.
“Yes, senpai,” Izaya drawls, and Shizuo blinks hard to snap himself out of his
momentary distraction. Izaya is grinning at him, his smile as taunting as it is
amused; Shizuo has to struggle to backtrack the last few seconds of speech in
his throat just to remember what it is Izaya is even teasing him about. He’s
only just pieced it together when Izaya shifts, half-turning towards the path
to the street without looking away from Shizuo. “Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo manages, feeling his attempt at casual speech stick into
incoherence in his throat. “Merry Christmas.” Izaya’s lashes dip, his smile
slips wider; and then he lifts his hand in a wave and is turning away for the
front gate without waiting for Shizuo to remember himself enough to manage a
wave of response. Shizuo stands in the doorway watching Izaya pull the gate
open and step out onto the sidewalk, but Izaya only looks back once, just for a
glance over his shoulder too quick for Shizuo to read before he’s moving away
down the sidewalk and out of sight; and then there’s just the cold dark of the
night and the fire in Shizuo’s own veins to keep him company. Shizuo turns away
from the street, retreating out of the entryway as he pushes the door shut to
stop the loss of the interior warmth to the chill of the outside; and then he
takes a breath, and takes a step forward, and makes for the stairs that lead to
the second floor and his bedroom.
There’s a relief in shutting the door behind him, an easing of tension that
comes with the click of the latch promising him freedom from anyone’s
observation for at least a few minutes. With the door shut Shizuo can lean
against the weight of the support, can tip his head against the wall at his
back and shut his eyes to the mundane reality of his surroundings while his
thoughts reel back over the last few hours and his heart skips to an even
faster pace in his chest than it already had. Shizuo is exhausted, his whole
body as shaky-tired as if he had been running instead of sitting still with the
strain of affection running through him with breathless force every time Izaya
laughed or moved or spoke. There’s a bruise at his hip, he thinks, the
afterimage left of one of Izaya’s kicks so minimal in comparison with Shizuo’s
old self-inflicted injuries that it doesn’t even feel like pain as much as heat
laid under his skin, like a brand Izaya’s touch left all unthinking for the
effect the contact would have. Shizuo can taste the bitter edge of beer at the
back of his tongue, can see the cut of Izaya’s smile behind his shut eyes; even
in the silence and solitude of the present moment his heart refuses to slow, is
skidding out against the too-clear memory of Izaya’s attention on him, of the
steady focus of the other’s stare as if to carry a confession Shizuo can barely
let himself hope for, much less believe. But Izaya had said no, had rejected
the possibility of a girlfriend as thoroughly as Shizuo had, and Shizuo hadn’t
really thought Izaya could have a girlfriend without him knowing about it but
the direct rejection comes weighted with possibility, whispers of the
possibility of a boyfriend if a girl is out of the question, whispers the
possibility of Shizuo--
Shizuo’s heart slips on a beat. His eyes are still shut, his shoulders still
close against the support of his closed bedroom door; but for a moment he’s
back in the doorway below, for a moment he’s reliving the farewell in the
entryway and playing it out to a different conclusion. What if Izaya had lifted
his head to flash that teasing smile and Shizuo had stepped in closer, what if
Shizuo had reached out to catch the other’s hair against his hands and ducked
his head to press a kiss to the other’s mouth? Izaya’s lips would be warm,
Shizuo is sure, would carry the taste of the mandarins he was eating or maybe
some trace of that odd smell that clings so close to his hair, to his skin, to
every part of him that Shizuo so wants, that Shizuo can feel himself aching for
every time he so much as considers the possibility. He could have kissed him
there, in the doorway, could have tangled his fingers into the soft of Izaya’s
hair and held him still against the wintery bite of the air outside; or
earlier, even, Shizuo can imagine it now, can see himself leaning over the
kotatsu to answer that unreadable question in Izaya’s eyes with the weight of
his mouth at the other’s lips. It’s an impossible idea even in fantasy -
- Kadota and Shinra were still there, and Shizuo can hardly imagine taking such
sudden action with an audience to track his moves -- but in the space of his
imagination it’s easy to undo their presence, to leave himself and Izaya alone
with just the warmth of the room and the dark focus of Izaya’s eyes on Shizuo
as he leans in closer. Shizuo can almost feel the soft of Izaya’s smile going
slack against his lips, can almost taste that citrus bite on the other’s skin;
and then Izaya of his imagination leans in closer, turns his head and opens his
mouth to let Shizuo taste the warm damp past his lips, and Shizuo realizes
abruptly that he’s hard, that he’s been standing in his bedroom thinking about
kissing his best friend and that all the blood in his body is thrumming itself
to the tension of want under his skin.
Shizuo opens his eyes. His room is familiar, the clutter of books and papers on
the desk in the corner as easy to dismiss as the jacket tossed over the back of
a chair and the half-open drawer of his dresser where he went searching for a
different shirt before Izaya’s arrival. Everything is familiar, ordinary, easy;
except that the bed looks like a promise, the rumple of the sheets looks like
an unvoiced suggestion of relief, and when Shizuo reaches behind him it’s to
turn the lock at his door with the careful deliberation of intent.
He doesn’t take his clothes off. That carries too much thought behind it, too
much patient consideration of what he’s about to do, and besides the heat in
his veins is swelling to a roar, the shuddering force of it enough to drown out
his better sense as surely as his sometime-anger overwhelms his rationality. He
just stumbles forward to the edge of the unmade bed, tosses himself down over
the sheets without even trying to pull them back, and when he rolls over onto
his back he’s reaching to unfasten the fly of his jeans without hesitating over
the movement. He’s committed to this now, was committed as soon as he shut the
front door to leave himself alone with his memories of Izaya close alongside
him, of Izaya watching him, of Izaya reaching out to bump his wrist carelessly
at Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo can still smell Izaya in the air, as if the continued
effect of the other’s presence has slipped into his clothes and pressed itself
skin-close to the warmth of Shizuo’s body, has laid itself alongside his own
existence as if with the intent to share the same space as he. It makes his
heart race, makes his breathing skip faster in his throat, and when he pushes
his clothes open and closes his fingers around himself he finds the sensation
just catches on the thrum of want in his chest, just shudders through his body
like he’s grounding himself against the electrical static of Izaya’s presence
still tangible in the air.
He doesn’t think about anything at first, at least not coherently. His hand is
moving, falling into a familiar rhythm of movement he doesn’t have to put any
true conscious thought into; it’s instinctive, reflexive, easy enough to do
almost completely unthought as he sometimes does late at night when he can’t
find sleep without the simple assistance of physical relief. But this time the
rise of warmth in his veins runs up against the wandering track of his
thoughts, the flushing pleasure of his grip dragging over himself meeting and
matching his half-formed thought of kissing Izaya over the edge of the kotatsu,
or up against the support of the front door. He can smell Izaya in the air, can
almost imagine Izaya is here, with him, now, that if he reached out a hand he
could touch the other’s face, could fit his fingers to the back of his neck to
brace them in place, Izaya or Shizuo himself he doesn’t know which. Shizuo tips
his knees wider, drags his hand up over himself, and his imagination catches to
the movement, suggests Izaya’s knees pressing close against Shizuo’s, suggests
the shadow of the other boy leaning in as his hand presses to Shizuo’s shirt,
as his touch slides down to -- and Shizuo’s whole body is flaring hot, now, his
spine tensing against the shudder of pleasure that hits him like a physical
force.
He can see it clearly, can almost convince himself he could open his eyes to
see Izaya straddling his knees, his head tipped down to watch the deliberate
stroke of his hand or lifted, maybe, maybe with the dark knowledge behind his
eyes fixed on the pant of Shizuo’s breathing coming hard at his lips as Izaya’s
fingers work over him. It’s easy to imagine, easy to picture the way Izaya’s
mouth would curve, the way his laugh would sound bright and sharp like glass in
sunlight as his fingers tighten, as his weight presses harder at Shizuo’s legs
under him, and Shizuo is arching up without meaning to, bucking his hips up to
meet the friction of what he imagines is Izaya’s hand stroking over him. He can
almost feel the other’s weight against him, can almost hear the sound of the
other’s breathing coming harder in time with his own, and it’s then that he
thinks of pressing his hand to the heavy fabric of Izaya’s pants, that he
imagines working his hand down into the undone front of Izaya’s jeans to drag
his fingers over the flushed resistance of the other’s cock against his touch.
Shizuo can imagine Izaya’s head tipping back at the contact, can see the curve
of his throat working on a groan at the friction, and his fantasy is starting
to fracture but it doesn’t matter, not now that he’s stroking over himself as
fast as he is. He imagines Izaya’s hand around him, imagines the graceful flex
of the other’s wrist as he draws heat up Shizuo’s spine; he imagines Izaya
gasping under him, imagines pushing the other’s shoulders back against the wall
next to the bed and holding him down while Shizuo strokes an easy grip over his
cock. He can smell Izaya in the air, can catch the taste of him on his tongue,
can feel the tremble of the other’s lips against his as Shizuo pulls him into a
kiss as everything in his body drags tight and straining towards pleasure.
Shizuo can imagine the weight of Izaya against him, can picture the sharp edges
of the other’s body pressing hard against him, can see the way Izaya’s eyes
would go wide with oncoming pleasure, the way his spine would curve to arch him
back against the sheets. Shizuo’s legs are shaking, his hand moving doubletime
as he drags fast over himself; and in his mind Izaya moans, the lilt of his
voice breaking open over Shizuo’s name, and in reality Shizuo bucks up into his
hand and groans something so hot it’s almost a plea as his cock jerks and
spurts sticky over his fingers. The jolts of pleasure shudder through him with
irresistible force, his body trembling through the tension straining along his
spine as the waves of relief crest and break over him, until all that’s left
for Shizuo to do is to let himself fall heavy to the sheets and pant for air
superheated by the radiance of heat in his veins.
Shizuo doesn’t move for a few minutes. Satisfaction is still lacing through
him, still purring contentment into his veins as adrenaline looses its grip on
his body, as pleasure lets him sag breathless and heavy into the sheets under
him. His fantasy is collapsing on itself, the details fading in clarity and
importance with every breath of air he takes; the imagined weight fades from
his legs, the momentary illusion of a touch other than his own eases from his
skin. But the smell of Izaya’s skin still clings to the air, sticking to the
heat of Shizuo’s inhales like it’s trying to slip inside his body and nestle
against his chest, and Shizuo keeps his eyes shut, and keeps breathing deep
lungfuls of air as if to hold the trace of Izaya closer against himself.
It’s not like his heart belongs to him anymore anyway.
***** Obvious *****
Shizuo pays no attention at all to class the first day of the new school year.
He’s trying to. His intentions are good: his goal is to pass the hours to lunch
by focusing on the pages of his textbook and the sound of his teacher’s voice
and very definitely not on the fact of Izaya in the same building, on the same
floor, sitting in a classroom not two rooms away from Shizuo’s own. It’s not
like Izaya’s proximity should make a difference; Shizuo can’t touch him, can’t
see him, there’s nothing at all different about his classroom just for the blue
Raijin jacket Izaya wore on the walk to school this morning. But it is
different, or at least he is different, because while his teacher is speaking
all Shizuo can think about is the way the sunlight caught to shadows against
Izaya’s hair, and when he glances at the clock all he’s thinking about is the
hours left to lunch, and the closer the break gets the faster his heart pounds,
as if sitting together over lunch for the first time in a year carries the
emotional weight of a date. Shizuo knows it doesn’t, knows he’s being
ridiculous -- he’s been eating lunch with Shinra and Kadota for a year, there
should be nothing that exciting about the same rooftop made familiar with use
over the last several months -- but excited is what he is, regardless of the
logic or rationality of that, and when class finally concludes to release him
to the hallway he can feel his heart racing the faster with every step he
takes. The crowd is sparse, still, the other students in less of a breathless
rush to get themselves to wherever they will collect to eat lunch, and by the
time Shizuo gets to the doorway of Izaya’s classroom the seats are only half-
empty, the aisles filled with the barrier made by clusters of the new students
as they introduce themselves or maneuver to speak to old friends. There are a
dozen first years still in the class, a double handful of faces and names
Shizuo doesn’t know; but his attention swings carelessly over the strangers
more like they’re obstacles than anything else, his gaze passing over lighter
hair or broader shoulders to find out Izaya still in his seat at the back of
the room. Izaya’s watching Shizuo, his gaze steady on the other even from
across the space; their eyes meet for a moment, Izaya’s mouth quirks on a
smile, and then he ducks his head over the textbook in front of him with as
much ostentatious focus as if he had never seen Shizuo at all. Shizuo huffs a
laugh that goes unseen, rolls his eyes towards the ceiling of the classroom,
and when he comes forward over the gap between them it’s with a smile caught at
the corner of his mouth.
“How do you like high school?” he asks as he comes closer and turns sideways to
lean hard against the edge of the empty desk alongside Izaya’s.
Izaya purses his lips without looking up and reaches out to flip through a few
pages of his math textbook. His wrist makes a sharp angle against the sleeve of
his coat, his fingers drawing over the edge of the book like poetry made into
the elegance of action. “It’s boring,” he says, his voice as drawlingly elegant
as the shift of his fingers. “Not much different than middle school.”
“No one said it’d be particularly interesting,” Shizuo tells him, forehead
creasing as his attention clings to the tangle of Izaya’s hair against the back
of his coat collar. He tightens his fingers against the edge of the desk to
keep from reaching out and knocking the strands free with his fingertips. “At
least it’s safer than those stupid games you play with the yakuza.”
“Do you really think so?” Izaya asks, turning his head up to meet Shizuo’s
gaze. His smile is bright against his lips. “With you here, senpai, the school
could turn into a warzone at any moment.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Shizuo tells him. Izaya looks back at his desk to flip his
textbook shut before bracing a hand against the edge of the table and pushing
himself fluidly to his feet. Shizuo straightens from the support of the desk
behind him as Izaya stands, turning to track the other’s motion as Izaya steps
out into the aisle between the chairs. “I keep telling you, I don’t get into
fights hardly at all anymore. Even if I did, I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Izaya laughs a sharp burst of sound, disbelief and mockery warring for control
over his tone. “That’s a comfort.” He takes the lead for the door of the
classroom without turning around, walking fast so Shizuo is left to trail in
his wake and can’t see the expression on the other’s face that goes with the
low shimmer of heat on his voice. “I’m sure you’ll be careful to recall this
precise conversation the next time you fly into a rage.”
“Shut up.” Izaya beelines for the stairs to the roof with unerring precision;
Shizuo isn’t even surprised that the other seems to know the school as well as
he does after just a morning spent in the confines of a classroom. He’s too
distracted by the pressure against the inside of his chest, by the weight of
horror that burdens his breathing at even the half-formed idea of hurting
Izaya. He stares at the line of the other’s shoulders under his new blue coat
as he follow him up the stairs, feels the ache of sincerity tangling on his
tongue to pull his words rough and insufficient even before he voices them. “I
don’t have any reason to hurt you.”
“Oh, is that all?” Izaya doesn’t turn around to look at Shizuo; he’s moving
faster, all but running up the steps as if he’s trying to escape even though
there’s nowhere for him to go but the roof. He pauses at the landing, looks
back to grin at Shizuo as he balances against the edge of the stair railing;
Shizuo rolls his eyes and slows his pace from two steps at a time to one, now
that Izaya is visibly waiting for him. “I’ll have to give you some reasons,
then.”
Shizuo can feel his shoulders hunch on preemptive panic for whatever it is
Izaya intends to attempt in pursuit of this stated goal. “You do not,” he
snaps, more harshly than he intends, but Izaya’s grin doesn’t flicker. “I have
enough to worry about with you as it is.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Izaya tells him, as if this is true, as if
need has anything at all to do with the unshakeable focus in Shizuo’s thoughts
that always land on Izaya when left to their own wandering. Izaya slides away
from the railing as Shizuo approaches, stepping up to the next stair and
pivoting to start the ascent backwards; his mouth catches and holds a smile for
a moment. “Though believe me, I’m honored by your concern.”
“Sure you are,” Shizuo says, retreating to sarcasm as the best defense against
the almost-sincerity in Izaya’s voice and the suggestion of softness behind his
eyes. Izaya’s foot catches against the edge of one of the steps, his balance
teetering for a moment before he regains it. Shizuo flinches reflexively and
follows Izaya towards the stairs with the expectation of the other’s fall
tensing adrenaline into his shoulders. “You’re going to hurt yourself doing
that.”
“Honored,” Izaya laughs, and takes the next two steps at a rapidfire pace.
“I’ve missed your fretting, senpai, really I have.”
He’s joking, Shizuo thinks; he’s fairly sure the lilt of the other’s voice is
shaped around the beginnings of laughter, that the amusement is at Shizuo’s
expense more than it is over a shared joke. But the words still hit with all
the force of sincerity, I’ve missed you almost audible under the amusement in
Izaya’s voice, and Shizuo can feel his skin prickle with that same desperate
hope he feels every time he convinces himself of some affection in Izaya’s
voice, every time he hears the suggestion of honesty under the other’s words.
“You’ve only gotten more irritating,” he says, starting up the stairs after
Izaya while he tries to hold to a teasing growl to cover the shiver of heat he
can feel in his throat. “Were you practicing over the last year or something?”
Izaya’s grin flashes bright as he backs away from Shizuo up the stairs. “Maybe
you’ve just forgotten,” he purrs, his voice like smoke in Shizuo’s ears as he
balances on one foot at the edge of the top landing, swinging his other out
wide so his balance wobbles dangerously at the edge of the support. He’s
watching Shizuo and not where he’s going, his smile pulling wider at Shizuo’s
flinch of panic, and Shizuo’s adrenaline coalesces in his veins, hardening to
determination as he sets his feet against the support of the stair under him.
“Brat,” he says, like the punctuation at the end of a sentence, and then he
pushes himself forward, taking the remaining stairs in a rush as Izaya freezes,
his eyes going wide as his expression falls to involuntary panic. His foot hits
the floor under him, his shoulders tip back and away, and Shizuo catches his
arm across Izaya’s chest, his fingers closing against the other’s shoulder as
he pushes him back and over the landing. Izaya makes a single, startled sound,
like an inhale choked-off on too much adrenaline as he grabs hard at Shizuo’s
arm around him, and for just a moment Shizuo has the keeping of both their
balance, with Izaya caught in the curve of his arm and too breathless with
startled adrenaline to speak. Shizuo’s heart is pounding, Izaya is warm and
close against him, and for the span of a breath Shizuo’s nose is pressed close
against Izaya’s hair and he can taste that spicy bite of Izaya’s skin against
his lips.
“You should have seen your face,” he says, low against Izaya’s ear, and Izaya
catches a breath like he’s been shocked by the sound of Shizuo’s voice against
his skin. He’s closer than Shizuo was prepared for; Shizuo can feel the rush of
Izaya’s breathing in the other’s chest pressed flush against his, can feel the
warmth of Izaya’s exhales sliding inside the line of his jacket collar.
Shizuo’s nose is against Izaya’s hair, his lips all but pressed to the other’s
ear; there’s licorice on his tongue, the smell dizzying his thoughts, and for a
heartbeat of time his imagination veers on wild possibility, hisses that he
should turn his head, that he should duck in over the breathless gap and press
his lips to Izaya’s cheek. It would be so easy, it would be effortless: he
could fit his mouth to the arch of the other’s cheekbone, could press affection
to the warm of Izaya’s skin, could kiss his way down to Izaya’s mouth to tangle
the heat of the other’s breathing with his, to see if Izaya tastes like he
smells, if filling his mouth with Izaya would be enough to undo the aching
tension of want he carries with him like a constant weight. Izaya can’t slip
away like this, not with Shizuo’s arm around him, it would be so easy to pin
down the maybe-offer in his eyes and the constant suggestion of his smile with
Shizuo’s mouth, to force the answer Shizuo thinks he knows but needs to hear
from the soft of the other’s lips, it would be -- and Izaya’s fingers tighten
on Shizuo’s arm, and Shizuo comes back to himself in a rush and lets the
other’s shoulder go all at once, stepping away to retreat to the door of the
rooftop as his heart skids doubletime on the almost still thudding in his
veins.
“Come on,” he manages, forcing the words past the heat in his pulse and the
surging want tense in every line of his body. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Izaya doesn’t answer for a moment. When Shizuo looks back at him he’s still
facing away down the shadows of the stairwell; it takes a moment before he
turns, and even then his eyes are wide and dark, his gaze so soft it’s nearly
pleading in spite of the shaky attempt at his usual smirk he manages. He looks
shaken, looks anxious and tense in a way that feels like a mirror for the way
Shizuo’s heart is trying to pound out of his chest. Shizuo’s stomach drops, his
breathing catches on a moment of suspicion so strong it’s near certainty, and
then Izaya looks down to Shizuo’s hand on the door and says “Does it matter?”
with his voice trembling so badly it’s almost a confession. “You’re just going
to feed me anyway, aren’t you?”
Shizuo’s laugh startles him, spilling up out of his throat on the adrenaline
rush of the almost-confirmation written into Izaya’s hunched shoulders,
thrumming under his voice, caught in the downward slant of his lashes. Shizuo
pulls the door open for them both; and then reckless hope gets the better of
him at last and dares him to bring his arm up and drop it around Izaya’s
shoulders as the other draws closer. Izaya stiffens at once, his whole body
going tense like Shizuo’s touch is electrifying him, but when Shizuo glances
sideways at him his mouth is still soft, curving on uncertainty rather than
panic. Shizuo shifts his arm, shuffling in a little closer in an attempt to
recreate some of that momentary closeness at the top of the stairs, and Izaya
looks up at him for just a moment, glancing at Shizuo’s face like he’s looking
for some kind of confirmation, like he’s looking for the answer to the question
neither of them have yet put voice to. He looks away almost immediately,
ducking his head back to the shadow of his hair; but when he shifts his weight
it’s to lean in closer, to bump the angle of his shoulder hard against Shizuo’s
chest like he’s lost his balance again, like he’s relying on the support of
Shizuo against him to keep him upright.
Shizuo’s smile is as irrepressible as Izaya’s affection is obvious.
***** Tolerant *****
It’s not difficult to spot Shinra from across the distance of the park. He
might blend in a little better than Shizuo does, with the darker shade of his
hair and similarly unobtrusive school uniform; but he has an energy to his
speech that leads him to flail his arms through the air as if he’s on a stage,
gesturing through his speech or fiddling with his glasses as though to ensure
they’re always clinging to the illumination of the sunlight, and besides the
woman next to him is unmistakable even at a distance. Shizuo doesn’t know what
kind of fabric Celty’s clothes are made of, but whatever it is they seem to
absorb light as effectively as the nighttime sky, as if a shadow has detached
itself from a nearby building to walk around in the shape of a person for a
period of time.
“There they are,” Izaya says needlessly from over Shizuo’s shoulder. He’s been
balancing along the edge of the wall he so likes to perch on when he and Shizuo
are here alone; Shizuo thinks he’s spent more time watching the pace of Izaya’s
feet along the ledge than keeping track of his own, but the other hasn’t
attempted anything too reckless as yet so Shizuo hasn’t complained beyond his
usual token growl of frustration. When he looks up Izaya’s watching the other
two instead of him, his hair backlit by the glow of the sunlight to fit the
suggestion of a halo against the dark of the strands. “The lovebirds.”
“Celty hasn’t said yes yet,” Shizuo reminds him without looking away from the
sharp edges of Izaya’s profile. “Shinra’s just obsessed, that’s the not the
same as them dating.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Izaya declares airily. “Shinra’s not going to let
it go and she hasn’t left yet.”
Shizuo can feel his mouth quirk on the beginnings of a laugh. “She’s in love
because she’s tolerated him this long?”
“Sure.” Izaya spreads his arms out to the sides, balances heel-to-toe against
the very edge of the wall with perfect equilibrium. “Why, do you think love is
something different?”
Shizuo can feel the obvious comparison prickling under his skin, can hear the
unspoken point of Izaya’s statement hovering like a promise just behind the
other’s tongue. “I--”
“There’s Dotachin,” Izaya says abruptly, turning his head and breaking the
focus Shizuo has on his face. “Help me down, senpai.”
“Get down yourself,” Shizuo tells him, habitual protest falling easy from his
lips as he reaches up to offer a hand to the other. Izaya takes it without
hesitation, pressing his palm flush against Shizuo’s and curling his fingers
into a bracing hold at the other’s hand; Shizuo’s touch brushes the inside of
Izaya’s wrist, his thumb settling gentle against the angle of bone under the
skin as Izaya leans hard against the support and leaps down from the wall. It’s
a graceful motion, as effortless as if Izaya has no real weight at all, as if
the guidance of Shizuo’s hand is more to tether him to the earth than to keep
him from falling, and Shizuo is still blinking from the ease of the action as
Izaya slides his hand free with the same careless grace and turns away towards
the group of the other three. Shizuo’s left to trail in the other’s wake, his
hand still tingling from the slide of Izaya’s skin against his, and by the time
he catches them up Shinra’s already halfway into the story of his morning.
“She said she couldn’t take me on her motorcycle,” he’s complaining now,
undermining the weight of his words by the cheerful tone he’s adopting for the
statement. “Since I don’t have adequate safety gear. But I think she just
didn’t want the distraction of us being so close, I know I wouldn’t be able to
keep my mind on the road with Celty pressed up against me!”
Shut up, Shinra, Celty types to him, holding the phone at enough of an angle
for the other three to read it too. That’s not the problem here.
“Oh, there’s no problem!” Shinra chirps, beaming delight at Celty next to him.
“I’m just glad to spend time with you, even if we did have to walk!”
“It’s not all that far for you, is it?” Kadota asks. Shizuo considers the edge
of the wall Celty and Shinra are leaning against and the bench just across from
them before moving to claim the seat opposite the other two for easier reading
of Celty’s messages. “It’s a nice afternoon too, the walk couldn’t have been
all that bad.”
“It would be fun to ride a motorcycle,” Izaya says, turning away from the
others to move towards Shizuo. “I’d be disappointed to miss the opportunity
too.” The bench is relatively wide, enough to fit two people comfortably or
three at a pinch; Izaya sits nearly in the middle, close enough that his knee
is pressing flush against Shizuo’s and his sleeve is catching against the
other’s elbow. Shizuo looks sideways but Izaya’s not looking at him at all;
he’s grinning at the other three, apparently entirely unconcerned by the casual
weight of his leg bumping against Shizuo’s.
“It would have been a wonderful opportunity,” Shinra sighs, shaking his head as
if borne down by the weight of the world; then he lifts his chin again, his
brief melancholy evaporating like it was never there at all as he says, “Oh,
Izaya-kun, did you end up rejecting that girl?”
The sunlight is warm outside of the shade of the trees; if anything Shizuo is
verging on too hot in the direct glow of it. But with Shinra’s words comes a
shiver as if ice is sliding down his spine, stripping the heat from the air and
his comfort with it. Kadota makes a face, cringing like Shinra has blurted some
secret, and Izaya says “Of course,” with such immediate speed that he’s nearly
speaking over the end of Shinra’s sentence. “It’s not a big deal.”
“What girl?” Shizuo asks.
“Just a girl who came by at lunch yesterday while you were talking to your
teacher,” Kadota says, his voice perfectly level and absent any details. “She
wanted to talk to Orihara.” His tone says that’s the end of the story; but
Shinra is blinking at him, looking faintly confused and excited in a way that
makes Shizuo more nervous than otherwise.
“She was confessing to him,” Shinra clarifies, overloud against the bright
clear of the air, and Kadota sighs and shrugs away whatever resistance he was
trying to offer. “I didn’t think he said yes, from how disappointed she looked,
but--”
“I rejected her,” Izaya says, his voice sharp and cutting enough to stem the
flow of words from Shinra. When Shizuo looks at him he’s glaring at the other
boy, his cheeks marked with spots of red that look more like anger than
embarrassment. “Why does this matter?”
Shinra shrugs. “If you say it doesn’t I guess it doesn’t!” He still sounds as
easy in himself as if he’s completely oblivious to the tension under Izaya’s
voice, is still smiling like he’s unaware of the strain forming at the edges of
the conversation. “I was just curious!”
“Don’t be nosy,” Izaya snaps, and Shinra laughs like this is a joke and turns
to say something to Kadota that Shizuo doesn’t pay attention to.
“You got a confession?” he asks instead, dropping his voice low enough so the
words will only be intelligible to Izaya.
“Of course I did,” Izaya says, just as softly and without looking up to meet
Shizuo’s gaze. “Despite what you may think I’m considered reasonably
attractive, senpai.”
“What?” Shizuo blurts. “I think you’re--” He stalls himself to silence, closes
his mouth as he feels his cheeks glow into heat. “I don’t think you’re
unattractive.”
Izaya glances at him sideways. His cheeks are still flushed, his shoulders
still tense, but for just a moment there’s a tug at the corner of his mouth,
the suggestion of a laugh straining at his lips while he fights it back.
“Thanks,” he says, and looks away again. “For what it’s worth it’s not your
looks holding back the hoards of admirers from throwing themselves at your
feet. You’re very handsome for a monster.”
Shizuo’s entire face burns into a blush. “Shut up,” he says, and Izaya’s mouth
gives way to a smile for a heartbeat before the tension still in him overcomes
the brief amusement. “Stop changing the subject.”
Izaya rolls his eyes without quite looking over to meet Shizuo’s stare. “Yes, I
got a confession. I told her no. It’s not a big deal. I got confessed to in
middle school all the time after you graduated.”
Shizuo swallows hard. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Izaya kicks his feet out in front of him and leans back hard against
the back of the bench. “Apparently you frightened everyone enough that they
didn’t want to try to talk to me when you were around. Maybe they thought you’d
try to hit them if they came too close.”
“Don’t be a brat,” Shizuo says automatically, but there’s something tight
around his chest, some instinctive viciousness that’s growling at the idea of
listening to someone confess her affection to Izaya, some edge of jealousy that
wants him to touch, to claim, to press his skin so close against the other’s
that he smells more like Shizuo than he does like himself. “You didn’t say
yes?”
“Oh, yes, now that you mention it,” Izaya says. “I did accept one, how silly of
me to forget, I’ll have to introduce you to my girlfriend the next time we’re
out.” He turns his head to give Shizuo a flat stare. “Of course I didn’t. I
would have told you if I had.”
“You didn’t tell me you were getting confessions,” Shizuo tells him.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Izaya fires back. “I’m not going to accept them,
okay?” He looks away again; his cheeks are still dark with lingering color.
“Don’t worry about it, Shizuo-senpai.”
Shizuo doesn’t know what it is about Izaya’s tone that carries the weight with
it, if it’s the low murmur of sound or the way his voice dips over Shizuo’s
name or the cadence of the words themselves. Maybe it’s not his tone at all;
maybe it’s the hunch of his shoulders, or the color in his cheeks, or the way
that he glances sideways at Shizuo without quite meeting his gaze like he’s
trying to gauge the other’s reaction without getting caught. Whatever the
cause, the result is a sincerity like Shizuo’s never heard before, a resonance
of honesty that undoes the knot of jealous panic in his chest and lets him let
his breath out in a rush of a relieved sigh.
“Okay,” he says, and looks back out to where Shinra is laughing at something on
Celty’s screen while Kadota grins quiet amusement from alongside them. “I
won’t.”
Izaya doesn’t answer out loud, but when he shifts his weight the movement tips
him hard to the side to let his shoulder press at Shizuo’s arm for a moment
that goes on a handful of seconds longer than it has to. Shizuo can feel the
comfort of the contact like electricity spreading out to fill his veins with
tingling heat.
The sunshine is warm against his skin.
***** Believe *****
Shizuo doesn’t speak until Izaya turns down the wrong street.
He’s been warm all day, glowing through his whole body with happiness
starbright on anticipation of the evening ever since he invited the other boy
over for Christmas dinner and received a laugh and a taunt in response that
both add up to yes, in the strange not-quite communication Shizuo is learning
to read almost as well as words or body language. It’s been pleasant just to
spend the day with Izaya, exciting just to linger in the other’s presence over
the hours of their day off, and every time Izaya grabbed at Shizuo’s sleeve or
leaned in against the other’s shoulder or cut his eyes sideways to smile
flirtation up through his lashes Shizuo’s mind caught the moment like a
snapshot, piled up all the evidence of the afternoon to whisper date with a
force he can’t ignore even if he hasn’t put voice to the word aloud. It’s
enough to have the experience, he tells himself, enough that everything about
the afternoon together has felt more romantic than platonic, until the
framework of a title seems more redundant than necessary. It’s true that
Shizuo’s hand is in his pocket instead of interlaced with Izaya’s, true that
there’s a gap between them still a little too tense to be easily crossed; but
it’s enough, for now, enough to haze Shizuo’s thoughts to distraction until he
almost misses Izaya’s turn and has to pivot sharply on his heel to follow the
other boy down the street he’s taken.
“This isn’t the way home,” he says as he jogs back into pace with Izaya. “Where
are we going?”
Izaya flashes a smirk sideways at Shizuo, the winter sunlight catching bright
against his teeth and saturating his eyes to shadowed-over crimson behind his
lashes. “Is it not? Shocking, that after all these years I still can’t remember
where you live.” Shizuo snorts amusement and swings his arm out in an offhand
attempt at a blow that he knows won’t land; Izaya dips his head without even
hesitating and lets the motion of Shizuo’s blow ruffle through his hair
accompanied by a laugh as edge-bright as sunlight on frost.
“I need to stop by my house,” he answers as he falls back into stride alongside
Shizuo. “Then you can remind me of how to get to yours.”
Shizuo’s smile comes too easy for him to try to repress, turns his “Brat” as
soft and gentle as an endearment against his tongue. “What do you need to go
home for? We’re having dinner at my place, I told you.”
“You did,” Izaya says, tossing his hair back from his face and glancing
sideways at Shizuo to raise an eyebrow. “This afternoon, actually. You’re lucky
I didn’t already have Christmas plans, senpai, or you would be left all alone
tonight. It would serve you right for waiting to ask until so late.”
He’s teasing. That fact is clear in every aspect of his speech, from the
tension clinging to laughter in the back of his throat to the sideways angle of
the glance he’s aiming at Shizuo. Shizuo still feels the possibility hit him
like a blow, still has a moment of unwarranted jealousy the more painful for
how rarely he feels it just at the hypothetical statement of Izaya having
Christmas plans with someone else. He can feel his expression darkening, can
feel his chest going tight, and when he says “Izaya-kun…” he doesn’t know
what’s going to follow, an admonishment to not tease or a full-blown confession
or just the frustration of the word itself.
Izaya doesn’t give him a chance to figure it out. “I have to check on my
sisters,” he says, looking away from Shizuo’s expression to gaze at the
sidewalk in front of them. “They’re expecting me home tonight and I want to
make sure they’re not out with a harem, at least not until later in the
evening.”
Shizuo coughs. “Izaya-kun.”
Izaya doesn’t look at him. “Mm?”
“How old are your sisters now?”
Izaya gasps a sound of affected hurt and lifts his hand to touch the breast of
his coat as he looks back up at Shizuo with a decent approximation of wounded
pain behind his eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve forgotten so soon, Shizuo-senpai,
does my devotion mean nothing to you?”
Shizuo fights back a smile at Izaya’s choice of words. “Don’t be a brat.”
Izaya’s show of drama evaporates into a flash of a smile, his hand falling to
his side as he darts ahead on the sidewalk again by a handful of strides.
“They’re seven. Eight in February.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes. “They’re kids,” he reminds Izaya. “They’re not going to
have boyfriends yet.”
Izaya looks back over his shoulder, his chin dipped down to cast his eyes into
unreadable shadows. “Don’t underestimate Oriharas,” he tells Shizuo, his voice
low on the shape of an overdone warning. “My sisters are extremely precocious.”
“Uh huh,” Shizuo says, feeling his attempt at resistance giving way to the
curve of Izaya’s smile and the dark focus of his eyes even before his frown
collapses into a laugh. “Fine. We’ll check on your precocious sisters before
going back to my place for dinner.”
“You should be careful,” Izaya tells him, swinging an arm wide as he pivots on
one foot to face Shizuo and continue backwards along the pavement. “They might
try to seduce you if you don’t have your guard up.”
“I think I can handle myself against a pair of seven-year-old girls,” Shizuo
tells him without putting voice to the truth that any attempted seduction of
him is bound to fall flat with Izaya there to hold his attention, that when it
comes to flirtations with Oriharas he’s already head-over-heels for the only
one he cares about. “Don’t do that, you’ll walk into someone.”
“As you command, senpai,” Izaya purrs, turning back and away and slowing his
pace enough for Shizuo to catch him up over the span of a few long strides. He
doesn’t look back up to make eye contact, but he’s smiling when Shizuo glances
down at him, holding the curve of his lips under the shadow of his hair like a
secret, and that’s enough to keep Shizuo smiling for the last few feet to
Izaya’s front gate. Izaya moves ahead as they round the corner, dropping into
the easy rhythm of a jog as he comes up to the entrance and unlocks the door;
he’s stepping into the hallway as Shizuo comes up the steps, calling as he
comes forward: “Mairu. Kururi. You haven’t murdered anyone, have you?”
There’s a murmur of sound, too faint for Shizuo to pick out on the far side of
the doorway, but then a louder response: “We wouldn’t tell you if we had!”
“Good,” Izaya yells back without missing a beat. He looks back over his
shoulder to Shizuo standing on the front step and offers the breathless bright
of a smile as he kicks his shoes off in the entryway. “I’ll be just a minute,”
he says, and then he’s gone, padding down the hallway in the direction of the
voices without bothering with turning on a light beyond the one in the
entrance. Shizuo can hear the low purr of sound from the other room,
conversation too faint to be intelligible; he’s left to sit at the edge of the
entryway and tug his shoes off more for the distraction of the action than any
real need. He’s expecting to barely have his first off before Izaya returns to
make the action futile; but he takes the first off, and the second alongside
it, and even after he’s lined them up alongside Izaya’s the other boy is still
halfway down the hallway, the crackle of his laughter coming sharp enough to
sound insincere even before Shizuo gets to his feet and moves to follow Izaya
into the shadows.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, pitching his voice loud to carry well
before he’s in range of physical contact. “I thought you said it would only
take a minute.”
“Just dealing with my sisters,” Izaya says, speaking fast and turning faster,
as if to make up for his hesitation by the speed with which he appears ready to
bolt for the door. “We’re just finishing.”
“Are you going out with Iza-nii for Christmas?” one of the twins asks; Mairu,
from the volume. When Shizuo squints into the dim-lit room he can just make out
both of the girls staring at him from the couch, their expressions formed of
identical focus absent any readable emotion.
“Yeah,” he says without turning away. “He’s coming over for dinner.”
“By himself?” Kururi murmurs, her voice so soft Shizuo can barely hear the
syllables for the low hiss of the television humming backlit behind the two
girls.
Shizuo can feel his face glow into heat, can feel self-consciousness hunching
into his shoulders as if his personal happiness over the label he’s been
attaching to the afternoon has become a weight against his shoulders. “Yeah,”
he manages, his voice creaking under the strain of attempted calm. “Shinra’s
with Celty and Kadota--”
“Had a date,” Izaya finishes, as fluidly as if Shizuo’s words are a cue. “Like
I do, with my boyfriend.” His hand closes at Shizuo’s elbow, his fingers
digging in with all the sharp edge of a knife as he shoves hard enough to
stumble Shizuo’s balance backwards towards the light in the entryway.
“Have fun,” Izaya says without looking back. “We definitely will.” There’s a
response from one of the girls, a shout that follows them down the hallway, but
Shizuo isn’t listening to it; he’s pretty sure the entire house could vanish
from around him and he wouldn’t notice for how hyper-focused his attention is
on Izaya. The other’s not looking at him any more than he looked back to his
sisters; he’s just pushing Shizuo backwards, nearly dragging him with a
strength Shizuo didn’t know he possessed, as if he can outpace the color
radiating scarlet all across the high line of his cheekbones.
“Izaya-kun,” Shizuo manages as Izaya pushes them back to the entryway and drops
to sit hard at the edge of the step. Shizuo stumbles himself back into balance,
gets his feet under him again without the force of Izaya’s hold to force him
off his feet, but he still feels like the world is spinning, still feels like
Izaya’s pulled the very presence of gravity out from under him to leave him
dizzy and helpless to the impossible ideas racing through his mind, to the
sound of Izaya’s voice on date, on boyfriend, the weight of the words bruising
farther into Shizuo’s composure than Izaya’s too-tight hold bruised his arm.
“What...you…”
“They would have said it in a minute themselves,” Izaya says to his shoes.
Shizuo can’t see his expression, can’t get a read on his voice; Izaya sounds
distant, or maybe it’s the sound of Shizuo’s own pulse thudding so loud in his
ears that’s eclipsing the trace of emotion on the other’s voice that could
grant him some kind of traction on this moment. “I just beat them to it.”
“But.” Izaya’s not looking up; his head is bowed too far forward, Shizuo can’t
see his expression at all. Shizuo’s heart is beating faster than he thinks it
ever has before, panic and adrenaline and the surge of desperate hope he can’t
hold back running so hard through him that he feels dizzy, that his whole sense
of the world feels like it’s veering sideways. “But we’re not.”
There’s no way, Shizuo’s mind tells him, rationality making a desperate bid at
argumentation against the hope so strong it might as well be deaf and blind to
any attempts at persuasion in the other direction. You would know, he would
have told you, you can’tpossiblybe dating withoutknowing. But are you sure?
hope purrs, tingling thrill all down Shizuo’s spine and out into the curve of
his fingers as Izaya stays silent, as he keeps his head ducked down and
finishes tying his shoe. Are yousurehe would have said something? Maybe
he...maybe you...maybe you both are--
“Come on, Shizuo-senpai,” Izaya says, and then he lifts his head, and his eyes
are crimson, and his mouth is tense, and Shizuo can feel his hope dash and
shatter on the wall of Izaya’s expression even before he finishes talking.
“Haven’t you ever lied before?”
Shizuo doesn’t know what expression he makes. Disappointment is heavy in him, a
weight he’s sure would shatter the bones of a skeleton less violence-hardened
than his own. But there’s none of the relief that would come with a physical
blow, none of the almost-satisfaction that follows on the bruising force of a
punch or the impact of a kick; there’s just bitterness, resignation the worse
for the moment of hope that went before, and the sharp edge of almost-amusement
underneath, self-deprecation so painful Shizuo nearly laughs with it. There’s
no humor in the sensation, no comfort in the thought; just disappointment, like
a bruise to settle against the inside of his ribs instead of the outside, to
press hard around his heart with a weight he can’t shake.
He should have known better than to believe anything Izaya says.
***** Bruised *****
Of all the things that have happened as a result of his friendship with Shinra,
Shizuo sometimes thinks meeting Celty was the best one.
Celty makes for good companionship. Kadota is pleasant to be around, Shinra
somewhat more stressful but still entertaining; Izaya is an entire experience
all on his own, was even before being around him turned into a constant battle
between his off-hand flirtation and Shizuo’s too-real reaction to it. But Celty
is easy to be around, comforting even just for the quiet she offers with her
lack of speech, and Shizuo finds it’s easier than he expected to waste the
whole of an afternoon just wandering around the city with her on those rare
days Izaya makes himself so scarce that Shizuo doesn’t see him even for the
span of an hour. There’s always the possibility he and Celty might run into the
other boy on accident, after all, and even when they don’t Shizuo always goes
home calmer, steadier, as if the simple fact of Celty’s presence has stripped
away some of the strain from his shoulders and eased some of the burden that
bears so heavy on his heart.
“Do you want to go to a cafe?” Shizuo asks now, as Celty stirs restlessly
beside him on the edge of the wall they’ve settled on. “I know you’re not one
for coffee but there’s a new tea place that opened up and I hear they’ve got
really good milkshakes I’d like to try.”
Celty’s typing is so fast Shizuo almost doesn’t see her fingers move for the
shadow the motion casts. Sure, is what the glow of the screen offers as she
holds it up to him. Shinra was telling me about that the other day, I’d like to
see what the fuss is about it.
“Cool,” Shizuo says, and then there’s a hum from the phone in his pocket, the
buzz of an incoming text message that makes him frown distraction as he looks
down and reaches for it. “Sorry, one sec.”
He doesn’t get text messages often. Shinra is prone to fast-paced phone calls
if he needs anything, and Celty’s occasional movie recommendations are unlikely
to be coming through when she’s sitting right next to him. Kasuka has a cell
phone but Shizuo’s never known him to actually initiate a conversation with it;
there’s only one person who texts Shizuo with any regularity, and his heart is
beating faster in anticipation even before he sees the display that promises
(1) new messagefrom Izaya-kun.
Shizuo opens it right away. Usually Izaya’s messages are brief things,
unintelligible taunts that don’t make sense until the other appears moments
later to clarify or the occasional photograph of a shady alley or a blurry hand
of poker with the text nothing to worry about, senpai ;) perfectly calibrated
to ensure Shizuo loses hours of sleep late in the evening. But this is
something different, neither a picture nor teasing; just an array of words
jumbled together until Shizuo can’t make any sense of them, and underneath, on
a line all its own: help without any further clarification to mitigate the ice
that rushes over Shizuo’s skin like there’s a sudden chill in the warmth of the
air. He stares at the message, feeling his shoulders tighten against sudden
stress, and then there’s a touch at his shoulder, and he jerks his head up just
as he realizes Celty’s been trying to get his attention for a few seconds.
Everything okay? her screen asks. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.
“I don’t know,” Shizuo admits. He holds his phone out for Celty to take. “What
does the first part mean?”
Celty touches the edge of his phone, tips in towards it as if to read it for a
moment of time far too brief to allow her to take in the words before she’s
tapping rapidfire into her PDA. She’s offering it again before Shizuo has had a
chance to take a breath, the two words An address clicking into the weight of
recognition as soon as he sees them. She pulls her PDA back to resume her
typing, but Shizuo reaches out to catch her wrist and stop the motion.
“I know where it is,” he says, and he’s pushing to his feet as fast as he shuts
his phone and returns it to his pocket. “Sorry, Celty, we’re going to have to
go to that cafe later.”
Celty waves a hand, the gesture better than the typed-out response that Shizuo
can’t wait for, because he’s turning away already, his feet hitting the rhythm
of a jog before he’s thought of it and speeding to a run as he crosses the
street to the sidewalk on the other side. The address is only a few blocks away
-- faster to cover on foot than to navigate with midday traffic on Celty’s
motorcycle -- but Shizuo’s heart is still pounding too hard to let him get a
breath, his lungs straining on panic that only intensifies with every second
that passes to expand on the details of what could be happening, of what Izaya
might be going through. He’s listening for shouts, for screams, for some sign
of conflict as he draws nearer to the cross-street Izaya’s text indicated; but
there’s nothing, everything seems so utterly peaceful Shizuo has a brief moment
of hope that maybe Izaya is teasing him, maybe his amusement in Shizuo’s
concern for his safety has taken a far crueler turn than what has ever come
before. Shizuo draws to a stop at the crossing Izaya indicated, gives a brief
once-over to the bare handful of people at the corner and sees Izaya nowhere,
and he can feel his shoulders sag into relief, can manage to take a full breath
to fill his lungs with much-needed oxygen.
Then he hears a voice from a side alley, a low rumble of conversation like the
speaker is trying to avoid being heard clearly, and everything in him
crystallizes into adrenaline in the gap between one breath and the next.
Shizuo doesn’t think at all as he rounds the corner to the alley. It’s shadowy
in the space, hard to see the details with his vision sun-blinded from the
bright of the main street; but he can see well enough to make out the shape of
two figures, too tall and too broad to be Izaya, standing over a crumpled shape
against the wall of the alley. Shizuo doesn’t need to see the pale lining at
the sleeves and collar of a familiar coat to know who it is lying so
terrifyingly still against the ground; he doesn’t think about it at all, in
fact, the adrenaline that has seized control of his body sets the fear neatly
aside to be dealt with later. Right now there are threats, sources of possible
danger that need to be removed, and neither of them turn as Shizuo approaches,
too caught in their murmured conversation to turn for the sound of scuff-soft
footsteps. Shizuo doesn’t try to hear what they’re saying, doesn’t try to make
sense of the words he can almost parse from the soft of their voices; he just
steps in, close enough for a blow, and when he swings his fist it’s with no
warning at all for the force of his knuckles crushing through the delicate bone
of a nose to destroy the integrity of the shape.
Someone yells. Shizuo doesn’t know which of the two strangers it is, doesn’t
care; it’s not Izaya, and one of them is still standing, and that means there’s
no point to stopping yet. He closes his other hand into a fist, digs his
fingernails in hard against his palm like he’s grounding himself, and when he
turns to the second man his opponent takes a step backwards, his body language
flinching back on instinct before Shizuo has even lifted his hand for a swing.
There’s sound in Shizuo’s throat, a feral noise of rage as involuntary as the
way his arm moves into a smooth arc as if someone else is steering him, as if
his anger has truly taken control of his body from the calmer voice of reason
he can usually muster. The stranger’s expression is vivid, his eyes wide on
horror and his mouth starting to fall open in answering fright, but Shizuo
doesn’t care about his reaction; the animal in him is watching the man’s jaw,
gauging angle and distance and force as his knuckles swing in to crush
destruction against the bone. Shizuo’s knuckles stand off against the
stranger’s jaw, bone against bone, and it’s Shizuo’s punch that wins, that
sends the other stumbling backwards with a noise of such raw agony that Shizuo
knows he’s won, knows there will be no resistance from this source. He could
leave it there, could step back and claim his victory here; but he can taste
licorice on his tongue, and rage is still crackling in a tsunami through his
veins, and what he does instead is swing his other fist up to slam another blow
against the fragile bone at the side of the man’s head. Shizuo can feel the way
the stranger’s head cants sideways, can feel the unresisting give of his
movement as consciousness melts under the force of Shizuo’s blow, and that
means the threat the man poses is as absent as his awareness, and that means he
can turn back to Izaya.
Izaya’s staring at Shizuo when he turns around. His eyes are open, his body
pushed up against the support of an elbow against the ground, and the first
thing that hits Shizuo is relief that the other is conscious, reassurance so
immediate that he feels as if he’s caught himself halfway through a fall, like
the support of the earth under his feet has suddenly reestablished itself when
he thought he was in free-fall. He steps in closer, as if to reassure himself
of Izaya’s physical safety by proximity, and it’s as Izaya blinks shock up at
him that Shizuo see the swelling starting against his cheekbone, the rise of a
bruise bad enough that he can see the beginnings of discoloration even as he
drops to a knee in front of the other. Shizuo’s hand lifts of its own accord,
rising to ghost against the injury swelling across Izaya’s cheekbone, and Izaya
jerks as if Shizuo’s touch is electricity, as if his fingertips carry far more
pain than they should even against the damage done to the smooth line of his
cheek.
“Fuck,” Shizuo hears himself growl, feeling the word going weighty to carry the
raw edge of fury lancing so hot in his veins. He feels like his hand is
shaking, like his whole body is thrumming with a hurricane of anger and fear
and relief and horror all too impossibly tangled for him to separate. “What did
they do to you?”
Izaya takes a shaky breath. Shizuo can hear it drag in the back of his throat,
can see the effort it costs in the tension creasing hard in the other’s
forehead, and for a moment he has the horrible thought that Izaya might have
broken a rib, that he might be struggling to breathe past the stabbing pain
that comes with the raw edge of shattered bone. But “Tried to shut me up” is
all Izaya says, coupling the words with a flicker of a smile that speaks more
to his desperation than offers reassurance. “You arrived just in time, senpai,
they were talking about breaking my leg next.”
“Fuck” and Shizuo is turning, twisting away from the hurt in Izaya’s expression
and that bruise rising to visibility across his cheek as his hands curl into
fists, as adrenaline seizes control to steer him towards the violence that
comes so much more easily to him than the mental strength needed to face
Izaya’s injuries.
“Don’t,” Izaya snaps, his voice harsh on what Shizuo is sure is more pain than
he ever wanted to imagine Izaya feeling, but when he grabs at Shizuo’s wrist
his grip is tight enough to bruise, his fingers digging in hard against the the
other’s skin like he’s trying to wrest control of Shizuo’s body away from the
fury binding the other’s rationality to mute silence.
Shizuo could pull free. It would be easy to shake Izaya off, even with the
other’s full strength clinging tight to his arm; he could drag his arm free,
could break the other’s hold, could push to his feet and go back to crush the
jaw of the first man too, to let off the tension of his fury into a bone-
breaking kick against the ribs of the second. If it were someone else holding
him he thinks he would, thinks he would wrest his arm free and go back to tread
over the too-brief path of violence he’s already started. But it’s Izaya’s
fingers around his wrist, it’s Izaya’s thumb pressing hard against his pulse,
and Izaya’s fragile hold has always been able to control the temper all
Shizuo’s strength has never been able to hold back.
He looks back instead. It’s hard to look at Izaya, painful to see the too-
visible hurt bruising across his face, and Shizuo thinks it’s that pain that
drags at his throat, that pulls his demand of “Why not?” so rough and grating
in his throat.
“Because,” Izaya says. His lashes flutter, his mouth shifts; when he smiles it
catches to softness at the corners of his eyes, draws his whole expression into
that breathtaking beauty that Shizuo has seen so rarely even in all the years
they’ve known each other. It steals his breath, makes him lose all the air in
his lungs in a startled exhale, and Izaya takes a breath and talks over any
kind of coherency Shizuo might have been able to muster from the tangle of
emotion in his head.
“You’d get yourself brought in by the police if you murdered them, senpai.” His
eyes are still dark on Shizuo’s face, his mouth still clinging to the edge of
that smile. His fingers are as tight around Shizuo’s wrist as a handcuff.
“They’re working for someone else anyway.”
Shizuo’s body moves of its own accord. He’s twisting on his heel, dropping to
both knees in front of Izaya; when he reaches out to grab at the other’s
shoulder it’s too fast, too hard, the sudden rush of protectiveness in him
sidestepping the limits he’s been deliberately putting on the strength of his
hands, but Izaya doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash at the force of Shizuo’s
fingers at his shoulder.
“Who?” Shizuo grates. They hurt you. I love you. I’ll destroy them. “Who are
they working for, I’ll kill them.”
“I’m not going to tell you,” Izaya says. He’s so close Shizuo can feel the rush
of the other’s breathing coming warm against his skin. “You can’t get rid of
everyone who has a grudge against me, and it’s stupid to try.”
“This isn’t a grudge.” Shizuo shakes at Izaya’s shoulder, trying to impress the
weight of his words with physical force as his coherency fails, but Izaya just
keeps smiling at him past that swelling bruise, his gaze still so soft against
Shizuo’s face that Shizuo can barely breathe for the agony of affection in his
chest. “They were going to kill you.”
“And you stopped them.” Izaya’s voice is level, his gaze unflinching; he’s
staring at Shizuo like they’re the only two people left alive in the entire
world, like there’s no one else that matters in this moment but the two of
them. “I’ve told you, senpai, I need a bodyguard.”
Shizuo’s chest tightens, his breathing hisses hard on the sudden knife-sharp
weight of Izaya’s words. His rage stutters, fury melting away like ice before
summer sunlight, you stopped them weighted over with trust so heavy Shizuo
isn’t sure even his much-healed shoulders can bear the burden. What if I
hadn’t? his imagination hisses. What if I wasn’t here? What if I didn’t come?
What would you have done without me? The questions are heavy, they press on the
back of his tongue like they’re weighted with lead; but in the end when he
opens his mouth what he says is, “I can’t be with you all the time, Izaya-kun,”
with the words falling like an apology that comes too-late to stop the bruise
lifting itself to the surface of Izaya’s skin.
Shizuo doesn’t put voice to the questions echoing in his mind. He’s very sure
he doesn’t want to know the answer to them.
***** Telltale *****
Chapter Notes
     This chapter includes two brief and non-specific moments of a
     sexualized fantasy involving a character under the age of eighteen.
     Please feel free to skip this chapter if that is a problem for you.
The hardest part for Shizuo is seeing the bruising across Izaya’s face. It’s
worst the day after the fight; the blow landed heaviest at the arch of the
other’s cheekbone, and the next day the swelling Shizuo had seen starting under
the featherlight touch of his fingertips has darkened to an angry purple-red
and is so pronounced as to swell Izaya’s eye nearly shut on that side. Izaya
seems unfazed by either pain or self-consciousness about the stares the angry
red draws, and Kadota doesn’t say anything after the concession of one startled
blink at the other’s appearance; Shizuo’s not entirely sure Shinra notices that
anything is wrong at all. But Shizuo can’t stop thinking about it, even when
he’s not watching the way Izaya’s smile tugs a little bit lopsided to avoid
straining at the bruise mottling across his face, and he’s relieved to see the
swelling has subsided by the second day, even if the color is fading out to an
unpleasant brownish-green at the edges. By the third day Izaya’s smile is back
to normal, any drag at the corner of his lips more from his usual show of
secrecy than a need to spare his swollen cheek, and even with the side of his
face marked with the yellow-green of lingering bruises Shizuo can stand to take
a full breath when he sees it, when he has the color of healing to look at
instead of the painful red of an active injury in front of him.
“Your face looks better,” he offers as Izaya takes the lead through the ever-
darkened hallway of the Orihara household and up the stairs to his room. “Did
anyone in your class ask about it?”
“Oh yes.” Izaya leaves the door to his bedroom open as he steps inside and
swings his bag to the floor alongside his bed. “I told them I got into a
lover’s quarrel with my abusive boyfriend.”
Shizuo’s whole body prickles with adrenaline, his breathing catching on the
word boyfriend in the moment before rationality can grab hold of him again and
pull him back to reason and the lilt of teasing in Izaya’s voice. “You did
not.”
“You’re getting better at that,” Izaya purrs, folding himself to the floor as
he turns and flashes the edge of a smile up at Shizuo. His eyes are dark behind
his lashes, the shadow of his gaze weighting his voice with a flirtatious edge
Shizuo can feel like the premonition of lightning under his skin. “I won’t be
able to lie about anything to you if you keep calling my bluff.”
“Sure you won’t,” Shizuo says, feeling resignation like a weight in his chest
to pull his words flat and disbelieving. He has to look away from the shadow in
Izaya’s eyes, has to turn himself away for the span of a breath just to remind
himself that he’s joking, he’s teasing you, he doesn’t mean it. His bag drops
to the floor, he follows it, and by the time his shoulders are pressing at the
edge of Izaya’s mattress he’s almost stripped the bitterness from his voice.
“You already lie about everything all the time, it’s not that hard to guess
when you’re fucking with me.”
“Unless I start telling the truth.” Izaya is still watching Shizuo’s face, his
lips still holding to the curve of that smile while his eyes promise sincerity
Shizuo can’t let himself believe. He braces a hand behind himself, leans back
at the support as he kicks his foot out over the space between them and presses
his toes against Shizuo’s thigh. “You’d never figure it out, then.”
“You wouldn’t,” Shizuo tells him, reaching out to still the distraction of
Izaya’s foot against his leg with the weight of his hand atop the other’s
ankle. Izaya angles his foot again, attempting motion he can’t achieve with
Shizuo holding him still, and Shizuo pushes him away so Izaya’s leg lands at
his calf instead of offering the strange intimacy of contact higher up his leg.
“I don’t think you even remember what truth is anymore.”
Izaya huffs a laugh. “Maybe not,” he says, curling his toes to press harder
against Shizuo’s leg as his smile slips wider across his face. “It’s more fun
this way, though, isn’t it?”
“For you,” Shizuo says, but he’s losing traction on his irritation, he can feel
frustration disintegrating in the face of the tingling electricity spilling
into his veins from Izaya’s foot against his leg. Izaya’s still watching him,
his eyes shadowed and his smile soft, and for just a minute Shizuo lets himself
imagine that they are dating, that Izaya’s too-common joke is the reality of
the situation and not just a story he likes to bring up to see the way it makes
Shizuo blush. It’s hard to muster any force for the push Shizuo attempts at
Izaya’s foot, and when Izaya’s only reaction is to kick his other leg out and
weight Shizuo’s calf with both his feet at once Shizuo lets even the appearance
of irritation subside as he relaxes against the side of the bed instead.
Izaya’s feet are heavy at his leg, the weight of the contact is spreading warm
into his veins; Shizuo can see the angle of the other’s ankle just against the
hem of his pants, can trace the edge of bone just under skin with his gaze as
Izaya shifts his foot into a more comfortable angle.
It’s always stunning to Shizuo, how fragile Izaya looks when he really thinks
about it. He’s sure it must be true of everyone, that surely Kadota’s shoulders
and Shinra’s nose would look just as blown-glass delicate if he were paying as
close attention to either of them. But every time he tries to do a comparative
study he just ends up distracted by the dip of shadow against Izaya’s
collarbones, or the shift of laughter thrumming against the column of the
other’s throat, or the careless grace of his fingers as he reaches for
something over Shizuo’s lap. It’s too easy to see the possibility of damage on
skin Shizuo knows he’s marked with accidental fingerprints in the past, too
easy to remember how simple it is to cause pain when Izaya’s been wearing a
bruise on his face like makeup for the last three days. Shizuo can remember
too-clearly the crumpled line of Izaya’s body against the wall of the alley,
how assumed unconsciousness undid all the taut elegance of Izaya’s limbs into a
boneless slump that ran cold horror through Shizuo’s entire body like winter
settling into his veins. It seems unreal to have Izaya here as he is, with
nothing more than a fading bruise across his cheek to stand to that moment of
unreal terror; but then, Shizuo knows better than to take anything Izaya says
for granted, and just because he’s acting like he’s fine doesn’t mean Shizuo’s
forgotten the way he limped as they made their way back out to the main street.
“Seriously,” he says aloud, voicing the words to the shift of Izaya’s feet
against his leg before he stretches out to touch his fingers to stop their
motion. “How bad is it?”
Izaya’s gaze doesn’t falter, his lashes don’t flicker. “You worry too much,” he
says, and the words are smooth too, polished to such a bright sheen Shizuo
can’t gain any traction of sincerity on them. “It’s just bruises.”
Shizuo frowns at the reminder, glancing at the asymmetrical color still
clinging to Izaya’s cheek. “That wasn’t all they did.”
Izaya rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “It’s fine,” he says, sitting up
straighter as he reaches for the front of his jacket and pushes the button
holding it shut free of the fabric. “Want to see?”
Shizuo doesn’t get a chance to answer. Izaya is letting his jacket fall open,
is closing his fingers on a handful of his shirt and tugging it free of his
pants, and then he’s pulling the fabric up and off his chest and Shizuo’s gaze
is falling unavoidably to the expanse of bare skin in front of him. His heart
skids, his breathing stalling on the suggestion that comes with Izaya stripping
his shirt off; but then he sees the bruises, and the beginnings of startled
arousal evaporate into a sudden rush of concern at the injury painted clear
across the whole side of Izaya’s chest. He doesn’t mean to move, doesn’t think
through his action as he twists towards Izaya to land on his knees and reach
out; it’s only as his fingers come into contact with the other’s skin that he
thinks to ease the force of his touch in consideration of the swelling still
dark and vivid against Izaya’s side.
“This looks awful,” Shizuo says, his voice breaking in his throat as his thumb
fits against the line of bruising that follows the bottom edge of Izaya’s
ribcage. Even after days of healing Shizuo can see the stripes of color
following the curve of bone under Izaya’s skin, even now the skin is still
mottled into a purple so dark Shizuo can barely see the suggestion of red in
it; he can’t guess what it must have looked like the first day, can hardly
imagine how Izaya was able to stand, much less walk, with the amount of pain he
must have been in. Shizuo’s hand looks very pale against the dark of the bruise
under Izaya’s skin. “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.”
“It’s just bruises,” Izaya says, his voice strained in the back of his throat
even though Shizuo is touching him as gently as he can, even though Shizuo’s
fingers are barely weighting the color against the shift of the other’s
breathing. “Nothing’s broken, it’s just sore.”
“You shouldn’t even be at school,” Shizuo tells him. His heart is pounding, his
stomach is in a freefall of retroactive horror at how much worse the injury is
than he originally believed; it truly is a miracle Izaya didn’t break a rib,
given the abuse he must have taken to leave him with this lingering damage.
Shizuo’s not completely sure he didn’t. “How are you walking with this?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Izaya insists, adopting that offhand dismissal
he always uses whenever it’s his physical health under discussion. “It’s fine,
senpai, you’ve had worse without even noticing you were hurt.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Shizuo growls, lifting his head to glare at Izaya
as if he can impress the value of the other’s safety into him through the raw
intensity of his gaze. He wants to continue -- to suggest they go to a doctor
to make sure nothing’s broken, maybe, or to extract a meaningless promise that
Izaya will tell him the next time he’s hurt instead of pretending he’s fine -
- but Izaya’s staring at him with an odd focus behind his eyes, something
caught halfway between fear and hope pressed between the line of his lips. His
skin is hot against the other’s hand, Shizuo realizes, he can feel how fast
Izaya’s breathing is coming in the shift of the other’s chest under his palm,
and they’re far closer than Shizuo had thought, close enough that when he
breathes in he can taste the bitter bite of the smell of Izaya’s skin against
his tongue. Shizuo’s attention flickers away from the dark of Izaya’s gaze on
his, slides down to linger against the tension at the other’s mouth, and
Izaya’s lashes flutter, his breathing catching hard against Shizuo’s hand.
Shizuo’s heart is racing, his pulse thudding to frantic speed in his veins, and
he can remember rejection on Izaya’s lips, can call up too-clearly the mocking
lilt of come on, Shizuo-senpai, haven’t you ever lied before? like a slap in
the face to shatter the too-brief existence of blown-glass hope. That was a
refusal, that was a rebuff shaped around the spill of a laugh; but Izaya’s not
pulling away from him, and Izaya’s lips are softening and parting around what
is unquestionably an invitation, and Shizuo is absolutely certain that if he
leaned in to press his mouth against the give of Izaya’s that the other would
melt under his touch as surely as the bite of his past-tense words would give
way to meaninglessness. Shizuo takes a breath, his heart thudding over the
structure of some half-formed request for permission to--
“Iza-nii!”
Shizuo’s attention fractures, cracking like glass under a too-tight grasp as
adrenaline jolts all his body taut with shock. He twists back to look to the
door, his heart racing so fast he can barely breathe to manage the
acknowledgment of “Mairu” he offers to the young girl standing framed in the
open door to Izaya’s room.
“Hi there Shizu-nii.” Mairu steps forward out of the doorway, coming closer as
Kururi appears in the shadow left at the entrance. “Are you corrupting our
brother?”
Shizuo’s throat closes up on self-consciousness. “What?” he chokes out. “No.
What--” and then he realizes his hand is still pressed close against Izaya’s
chest, that his fingers are still framing the rhythm of the other’s too-fast
breathing. He pulls his hand away in a rush, his whole arm tingling with
adrenaline from the contact, and Izaya lets his shirt fall back in place to
hide bruised-dark skin.
“No,” Shizuo attempts again, not sure what he’s denying but certain the heat
burning across his cheeks is entirely undermining any claim he might make to
innocence. “He was just--”
“You interrupted my seduction,” Izaya says, sounding so casual Shizuo almost
believes the laughter under his voice, would believe him were it not for the
edge of tension that catches taut on the last word. Shizuo glances at him but
Izaya’s not looking at him; his gaze is fixed on Mairu, any softness there was
at his mouth entirely eclipsed by strain to match the clip of his voice. “Come
on, do you want your big brother to die a virgin?” That’s more than Shizuo was
expecting, the words pulling a mental image too immediately to his imagination
for him to resist; he can feel his face flame into heat, can feel his whole
body going hot at the idea of Izaya’s bare skin under his hands, at the idea of
Izaya arching up off the floor under him, at the idea of Izaya’s hands clinging
to his shoulders and Izaya’s knees open around his hips and Izaya--
“You should have shut the door if you wanted privacy,” Mairu says, and Shizuo
wrenches his glazed-over focus away from Izaya’s face and around to the twins
in an attempt to forcibly drag himself back to reality. Mairu is looking from
one of them to the other, appearing entirely unfazed and not in the least
embarrassed. “You don’t have to stop. Keep doing what you were doing.”
“We weren’t doing anything,” Shizuo protests, his voice dragging to depths of
telltale regret on the truth of the statement. They could have been doing
something, he thinks, he knows he didn’t imagine that softness at Izaya’s
mouth, that shadow in his eyes, that-- “You shouldn’t be thinking about that
kind of thing anyway, at your age.”
“You should be.” Mairu makes it sound like a judgment, like she’s talking to
someone much younger than her instead of much older. “Why haven’t you taken
Iza-nii to a love hotel or something yet?”
This time Shizuo can feel the flush of embarrassment separate from the burn of
arousal through his veins, can feel his cheeks flaming to crimson as he goes
hard inside his jeans, as his imagination suggests graceful fingers curling
into his hair, Izaya’s voice breaking on a moan, the smell of licorice heavy
against sweat-warm skin. “We are not dating,” he says, clinging to absolute
honesty as the best defense against the heat swamping his coherency, against
the desire heavy in his shoulders and trembling adrenaline into his wrists.
“Get out of my room,” Izaya snaps, offering salvation for which Shizuo is
grateful even if he can’t bring himself to look at the other boy while his
breathing is still rushing so hot in his lungs. “And shut the door on the way
out, I don’t want to see you for another hour at least.”
“Aww,” Mairu whines. “But we’re hungry.”
“I’ll make dinner later. Get out and leave us alone.”
“Fine.” Kururi is pulling Mairu towards the door, apparently more willing to
surrender to Izaya’s demand than her sister; Mairu is slower to move, requiring
the other girl’s urging to act, and even in the doorway she pauses to call
back, “Don’t have too much fun without us” before reaching for the handle to
swing the weight of the door shut behind her.
There’s a moment of complete silence. Shizuo stays as he is, turned around to
look at the closed door more because it seems the safest focal point than
because there’s anything at all to look at. There’s only one thing in the room
he’s really thinking about, and he doesn’t dare turn around to meet Izaya’s
gaze until he has his heart rate and the heat in his blood tamped down to a
more manageable level; the door is as good as anything else to fix his eyes on
while he breathes himself back into neutral thoughts that have nothing to do
with the smell of Izaya’s skin or the angle of his wrist or the part of his
mouth. Finally Shizuo can manage a mostly-ordinary inhale, can turn around with
something like a composed expression, and if he fixes his gaze on Izaya’s knees
instead of his face it has more to do with the weight of his own embarrassment
still hot across his cheeks than from a lack of self-restraint. He coughs,
making an attempt at his normal voice before giving it up as hopeless and just
offering the simplicity of “Sorry” rough on self-consciousness in the back of
his throat.
“Are you taking responsibility for my sisters now?” Izaya asks. Shizuo glances
up at him, looking through the weight of his hair at the other’s face; Izaya is
smiling at him, his lopsided grin as familiar and well-practiced as the tilt of
his head. “By all means, take them home if you want to play big brother,
they’re far more of a pain than they’re worth.”
Shizuo wants to clarify. It’s not Mairu and Kururi his apology is for; it’s for
everything else, for the careless weight of his touch against Izaya’s skin, for
that moment of almost so clear in the air he can still imagine the imprint of
Izaya’s mouth again his. It’s for the way he snatched his touch away, the way
he denied a romantic relationship so quickly, the way his blood went to fire in
his veins at the off-hand suggestion from first Izaya and then Mairu. There’s
so much he wants to apologize for, for not being there sooner to stop the blows
that left Izaya so injured and for wanting so much more than the comfort of
friendship between them and for pretending he doesn’t want more, that he’s not
aching in the very core of his being to have Izaya closer to him even than he
is now. There’s too much, all of it tangling in on itself into incoherency; and
then Izaya looks away, ducking his head as his cheeks color to pink not quite
covered by the shadow of his hair falling in front of his face.
“Let’s play a game before we go and find some food for them.” Izaya reaches out
for the shogi board pushed carelessly to the side when they came in; the motion
looks almost casual, would pass for such if Shizuo couldn’t see the color
across the other’s cheeks and the tense set of his mouth behind the shadow of
his hair. But Shizuo cansee, can see the flush at Izaya’s skin and the tremor
running along his hand and the way he’s avoiding meeting Shizuo’s gaze, and
while Izaya is keeping his head ducked down and his face turned away Shizuo’s
heart is beating the harder on the tentative, fragile outline of renewed hope
inside his chest.
Izaya can insist he’s fine, can promise he’s healthy with the same casual
dishonesty that draws his voice into a laugh over the word boyfriend, over
dating, over seduction. But bruises aren’t the only thing Shizuo can see for
himself, and it wasn’t Izaya’s injuries Shizuo was watching when the other’s
lashes fluttered over a moment of anticipated surrender.
Shizuo wonders if Izaya’s heart is racing as hard as his is from that moment of
almost.
***** Waves *****
Izaya is beautiful in the sunlight.
Izaya is beautiful all the time, really, if Shizuo is honest with himself; the
shadows that cast across his face late at night are just as kind to his
features as the bright illumination of the summer sun is striking against the
dark of his hair and the pale of his skin. But the light brings out the color
of his eyes, and catches his smile flashing brighter even than it usually is,
and with the sparkle of water droplets from the fountain they’re perched on
catching against the ends of Izaya’s hair and against the feathery weight of
his lashes, Shizuo finds even his best attempt at self-restraint can’t keep his
focus from the other’s face. Izaya seems brighter with energy, too, as if the
warmth in the air that has finally persuaded him to give up his everpresent
jacket is humming electricity through his veins in place of blood; it was his
idea to buy a handful of popsicles for the two of them as well as for Kadota
and Shinra, and his suggestion to go wading through the clear water of the
fountain, and his voice, now, that lilts out the edge of teasing as he says, “I
can’t believe you’re eating your popsicle like that, senpai,” with the weight
of his gaze on Shizuo leaving no question as to the target of the statement.
“Don’t you know how to be normal at all?”
“What?” Shizuo blinks, shaking himself free of the distraction that comes with
Izaya’s smile to look down at the half-finished popsicle in his hand. He can
barely remember eating it at all, much less call up an awareness of anything
unusual about his approach. “What are you talking about?”
“You bite it off the stick,” Izaya informs him. “Instead of being patient and
waiting for it to melt.”
“Oh.” Shizuo considers his popsicle. “Yeah. That’s not that weird. Why do you
have to pick a fight about everything?”
“I’m just being honest.” Izaya kicks through the water to send the ruffle of a
wave sloshing towards Shizuo’s ankles. The water splashes against his calf,
spilling up to dampen the bottom edge of Shizuo’s jeans where they’re rolled up
around his knees. “No one bites popsicles, senpai.”
“They do,” Shizuo returns, fighting back the smile that rises in irresistible
response to the curve of Izaya’s mouth as the other smirks at him. “It’s not
just me, don’t be ridiculous.”
“It is unusual.” That from Shinra, wandering through the middle of the fountain
with his pants rolled up and the hem of the lab coat he wears outside of school
trailing in the water behind him. He doesn’t even look away from the splash of
the fountain. “None of us eat popsicles like that.”
“What else are you supposed to do?” Shizuo demands, looking back to Izaya since
Shinra appears wholly engrossed in whatever it is he’s trying to do under the
splash of the fountain over his head. Izaya hasn’t looked away, his smile
hasn’t wavered; he’s still gazing at Shizuo with amusement catching at his
lips, his lashes heavy with the laughter not quite making it past his throat to
audibility. “They melt off the stick if you take too long with them.”
“It hurts to bite into them,” Izaya tells him, shifting his leg for another
splash of water. Shizuo swings his foot wide to catch his knee against Izaya’s
jeans and forestall the movement before it begins, and Izaya just smiles the
wider at him.
“It doesn’t,” Shizuo protests, his mouth tugging at the threat of an answering
smile as Izaya doesn’t pull back from the contact.
“It does,” Izaya lilts back. “It aches against your teeth and in the back of
your head. Do you not feel that anymore than you feel broken bones?”
“It’s not that weird.” Kadota, this time, speaking up from Shizuo’s other side
without looking away from the idle attention he’s giving the passersby along
the sidewalk in front of them. “Togusa bites popsicles too.”
“Your friend is a freak,” Izaya tells him. “My condolences, Dotachin.”
“Don’t call me that,” Kadota says with perfect equanimity in his voice.
“Too late,” Izaya purrs at him. When Shizuo looks back Izaya has a smirk
clinging to his lips, is grinning wider at this evidence of the beginnings of
an argument. “It fits you too well, you’ll never shake it now.”
“You don’t have a nickname for anyone else. Why are you so hung up on mine?”
“You’re right,” Izaya says, as if he’s never considered this idea before. He
looks away from Kadota and out to Shinra, skipping over Shizuo like the other’s
not even there; but Shizuo can see the show of consideration behind Izaya’s
eyes, can see the deliberate act of dismissal as he looks away from Shinra and
turns back to meet Shizuo’s gaze. “Maybe I should have a nickname for Shizuo-
senpai.”
“No,” Shizuo says, immediate rejection of this idea even though he knows full
well that has never stopped Izaya before and is unlikely to do so now.
Izaya doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s heard the words. He looks away
instead, turning his face up to the sky and creasing his forehead on thought as
he brings his popsicle to his mouth, as he presses his lips against the cool
and sucks at the ice with enough show to send a shiver of self-consciousness
down Shizuo’s spine. He can see the popsicle melting against the heat of
Izaya’s mouth, can follow the trickle of melting sugar to the corner of the
other’s lips as Izaya draws the popsicle back and licks to catch the drip with
his tongue. Shizuo’s skin prickles, his blood flushing into heat that has
nothing to do with the weight of the sunshine glowing against his shoulders,
but Izaya doesn’t look at him, doesn’t seem aware of the other’s reaction at
all.
“Shizu-nii is too familial,” he says, aiming his words to the bright of the sky
overhead. “Shizucchi is too hard to say, isn’t it?” He weights a hand against
the edge of the fountain, cuts his gaze sideways under the shadow of his hair
as he brings the popsicle to his mouth again; Shizuo can see the shading of
Izaya’s lashes against his cheek, the weight of them enough to bar the sunlight
from the color of his eyes. His lips are very red against the blue of the ice.
Izaya draws the popsicle back, running his tongue over his lips as he smiles,
and Shizuo can feel the heat in his veins surge so hot he’s sure it must be
visible as a burn across his cheeks. “Simple is best, isn’t it, Shizu-chan?”
Shizuo can feel his whole body go tense against the too-familiar nickname on
Izaya’s lips. “If you call me Shizu-chan I will throw you into this fountain.”
“Don’t you like it?” Izaya lilts, his voice sultry-sweet and his eyes bright
with laughter to match the edge of his grin. “I thought we were friends, Shizu-
chan.”
“I’m serious,” Shizuo growls, taking a bite off his popsicle in a completely
futile attempt to cool the burn of embarrassment in his veins, the shudder of
reaction that runs through him every time he hears Izaya’s voice wrapping
around those teasingly affectionate syllables. “Call me that again and you’ll
regret it.”
Izaya slouches farther sideways against the brace of his hand, angles his head
to the side as he smiles wider. “Will I?” he says, and Shizuo can hear the
laughter under his voice, is moving to react even as Izaya drawls, “How can you
be sure, Shi--” The water catches against Shizuo’s cupped fingers and sweeps up
as he splashes it towards Izaya’s face to eclipse the other’s words with a wave
of water directly into the taunting shadows of Izaya’s expression. Izaya
doesn’t turn away, doesn’t even flinch; he just coughs a laugh, amusement
spilling summer-bright past his lips as he lifts his hand from the edge of the
fountain to push dripping hair back from his features, and Shizuo’s smiling
too, affection winning out over his best attempt at frustration to suggest an
idea to answer Izaya’s taunt in kind.
“What the fuck’s wrong with my name?” he demands as Izaya blinks his vision
back into focus on Shizuo’s face. “You always make things more complicated than
they need to be,” and he’s ready, he’s doing it, he can feel the shape of
commitment in the sharp edges lying against his tongue. “Izaya.”
Izaya doesn’t even blink. He just holds Shizuo’s gaze, meeting the other’s
stare head-on as he shifts his popsicle to his other hand and dips sticky
fingers into the cool of the water by their feet. “If you insist,” he purrs,
and Shizuo knows what’s coming, can taste it like heat in the air just before
Izaya says “Shizuo” and sends a wave of water up towards him. Shizuo ducks as
the splash hits, lets the water spray cool over his hair and the back of his
neck instead of across the front of his shirt, and he’s grinning too bright to
try to hold back, happiness inordinately warm inside his chest as he shakes
water from his hair and looks up to see the way Izaya is watching him, with his
eyes soft and his smile sharp.
It’s a little thing, a tiny shift in the balance of the dynamic they’ve been
sustaining for the past few years. But Shizuo’s still smiling, and Izaya’s
still laughing even as Shizuo splashes another wave of water towards him, and
Shizuo can taste Izaya’s name on his tongue like the effervescent cool of a
popsicle in summertime heat.
***** Peaceful *****
Izaya has gentle hands.
It seems unreasonable, when Shizuo thinks about it. Izaya wields his voice like
a threat and his gaze like a knife, cuts with the blade of insults and laughter
as easily as breathing; by all rights his hands should be as dangerous, his
fingers should carry the weight of a punch or the danger of a scratch more
easily than affection or care. But it’s Izaya’s hands that show the tremor of
adrenaline first, that sometimes give him away before a shift of his expression
or a thrum in his voice does, and in all Shizuo’s life he doesn’t think he’s
felt anything as soothing as the drag of the other’s fingers running through
the weight of his hair.
“You’re supposed to be studying for history,” Izaya tells him, the words
stripped down to gentleness to match the curl of his hold against the pale of
Shizuo’s hair. He’s lying against Shizuo’s bed, angled over the sheets in a
space-filling position that looks possessive, that makes the furniture looks
like it belongs to him more than to Shizuo, and Shizuo has no motivation and
less reason to try to evict him.
“You’re distracting me,” Shizuo informs him, skirting the edge of enough truth
without tipping over the lip of too-much into the confessional honesty neither
of them have quite crossed into yet. His eyelids are going heavy, his
expression falling slack with the pleasure of Izaya’s fingertips dragging over
his scalp; he doesn’t try to compose it, doesn’t try to strip the weight of
satisfaction from his voice when he speaks. There’s only so far he’s willing to
go for the sake of deniability. “I can’t focus when you’re doing that.”
“You don’t have much focus at all, do you?” Izaya teases, but he’s smiling,
Shizuo can hear the expression warm in the other’s voice. Izaya’s hand drags
friction over the back of Shizuo’s head and Shizuo lets himself tip sideways to
the force, lets the surrender of his motion speak to the physical pleasure that
comes with the contact. “You’ll never get into university with a work ethic
like that.”
Shizuo huffs amusement, laughter falling easy from the purr of pleasure
threatening to make itself audible as a groan in place of his every exhale.
“Who said I was going to university? I’m going to start working once I graduate
high school.”
“Oh?” Izaya drawls. His touch slides down Shizuo’s hair, his hand fitting under
the weight of bleached-yellow against the back of the other’s neck; Shizuo lets
his head fall forward to offer his skin for the press of Izaya’s palm warm
against him. “And here I thought you were going to become a doctor like
Shinra.”
Shizuo smiles without opening his eyes. “You are such a liar.” Izaya’s fingers
tense at his skin, slide up to push through the weight of his hair again;
Shizuo can feel the friction of the other’s touch purr heat down the whole
length of his spine. “Do you even know how to tell the truth anymore?”
“Truth is subjective,” Izaya informs him, tightening his fingers into almost-a-
fist at Shizuo’s hair and tugging gentle sensation over the other’s scalp.
Shizuo does groan at that, a low note of pleasure at the friction, and Izaya
huffs a laugh before his hold eases and he returns to idly feathering his
fingers through Shizuo’s hair. “It all comes down to how you interpret
reality.”
“Uh huh,” Shizuo growls, the resonance in his chest unfolding into the shadow
of teasing in his throat. “And you’re objectively a brat.”
Izaya hums amusement. “Sweet talk will get you anything you want from me,” he
says, lilting the words around the shape of flirtation, and for a moment
Shizuo’s chest goes tight on possibility, his cheeks go warm on the memory of
his hand against the dark-bruised purple of Izaya’s chest, of Izaya’s sharp-
edged mouth going soft with preemptive surrender. This is meant as a joke, he
knows, is meant as part and parcel of Izaya’s perpetual not-quite serious
suggestiveness; but Shizuo wonders now, like he always wonders, what Izaya
would do if he turned around, if he slid free from the other’s touch and
reached out to wind his fingers into dark hair instead, if he pulled Izaya in
to press his mouth to the curve of the other’s smile. Would Izaya balk, would
he flinch back, would he shove at Shizuo’s shoulder until the other let him
free? Or would he melt, would he go warm and pliant and breathless the way
Shizuo’s imagination sometimes paints him, the way his teasing tone seems to be
offering?
Shizuo doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t turn around. He never does. He doesn’t
know what Izaya would do, can’t tell if that teasing is sincere or purely
mocking; and it’s enough, he thinks, to have Izaya like this, in his bed and
sprawling across his sheets, winding elegant fingers into Shizuo’s hair with
the careless grace that always strikes Shizuo so breathlessly hot with
answering adrenaline. Right now there’s none of the strain of painful want that
steals Shizuo’s calm at other times, none of the ache of uncertainty that
weights at his chest until he has to struggle to fill his lungs with oxygen;
there’s just the pleasure of Izaya’s company, the soft purr of his voice
spilling warm through Shizuo’s thoughts and his touch drawing gentle through
Shizuo’s hair, and Shizuo thinks he could be happy like this forever, just
sitting still and quiet on his bedroom floor with Izaya’s hands ruffling the
pale strands of his hair. But he can’t stay here forever, can’t keep Izaya safe
with him any more than he can delay the inevitable pressure of graduation that
will pull him into an as-yet-unknown job and leave Izaya alone to finish out
another year of school before he graduates and goes on to...Shizuo doesn’t know
what, doesn’t know if Izaya will stay in Ikebukuro or leave, doesn’t know if
he’ll find a job of his own or if he’ll be leaving for some unknown university
in some unknown city. Shizuo hasn’t thought of it before, hasn’t before
considered the possibility of Izaya graduating, of Izaya leaving, of Izaya
distant from him more than the few familiar streets that link their family
homes, and for a moment the idea is more than he can bear, it steals his breath
and stalls his thoughts and leaves him tense and trembling with adrenaline
expecting a fight with some opponent that doesn’t exist. There’s nothing to
fight against, here, nothing but the weight of the unknown future bearing down
on him, and so Shizuo opens his eyes, and takes a breath, and asks, “What are
you going to do?” with so much strain in his voice he can hear the effort clear
on the sound of the words in the air. “After graduation.”
“I’m going to keep going to classes, mostly.” Izaya’s fingers wander over
Shizuo’s scalp, tighten and pull the weight of the other’s hair back over his
ear. “I’ll pine for you when I think about it.”
Shizuo twists under Izaya’s touch, reaching back to push gently against the
other’s leg as Izaya laughs and rolls back over the bed to dodge the force.
“Not my graduation. You know what I mean.”
Izaya falls back over the bed, sprawling wide over the sheets as he reaches up
to touch his fingertips to the ends of Shizuo’s hair again. He’s not looking at
Shizuo; with his focus elsewhere Shizuo can watch him unobserved, can see the
way Izaya’s eyes go soft and his mouth curves to gentleness with the
distraction of his idle movement. “More of what I’ve been doing,” he says,
casually, like the words have nothing to do with either of their futures. “I
have a reputation with the yakuza, now, they rely on me for information.”
“That’s not something to be proud of” but Shizuo’s still feeling the weight
against his chest ease, still feeling that brief moment of panic fading with
the off-hand reassurance of Izaya’s words. “You’re not going to go to
university, then?”
“Mm.” Izaya’s still watching his fingers; when he shifts his hand drags through
Shizuo’s hair, his fingertips finding their way through the weight of the
strands and back to press against Shizuo’s scalp. “No.” His attention flickers
down again, his gaze catches Shizuo’s; his mouth manages a smile but his eyes
are dark with sincerity. “Why, Shizuo, worried I was going to run off to
Shinjuku and you’d never see me again?”
Shizuo can feel his face starting to burn to heat at this too-close hit. “Shut
up,” he growls, and twists away before Izaya can read the relief in the smile
that pulls at his mouth, before the blush across his cheeks gives away the
shudder of reaction that hits him every time Izaya uses his name unadorned with
its usual honorific. “Good riddance if you did.”
“You’d miss me,” Izaya purrs, his fingers winding deeper into Shizuo’s hair and
drawing it back and away from the other’s face as he shifts over the mattress.
“What would you do if you didn’t have me around to worry about all the time?”
Shizuo’s mouth twists, pulling on a smile in spite of the self-consciousness
still glowing hot across his cheeks, and when he speaks it’s weighted with the
familiar rhythm of teasing. “Enjoy my life a lot more, I bet.”
“You wouldn’t,” Izaya tells him, and Shizuo knows that to be too true for him
to protest. “You’d be bored, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”
Izaya’s nails dig in against Shizuo’s scalp and drag sensation back over the
other’s head, and Shizuo huffs a breath of satisfaction again, the immediate
physical pleasure of the friction overriding his embarrassment and unfastening
the strain across his shoulders. He leans back against the edge of the bed,
lets the mattress take the weight of his body, and Izaya’s fingers curl in
against his hair to tug gentle pressure over his scalp again, down low, where
dark is growing out under the yellow. “You’d have to bleach your hair
yourself.”
“I have to do that anyway.” Shizuo’s eyes are falling shut again; his words are
coming easy over his tongue, forming themselves from the purr of comfort
radiating along his spine in answer to Izaya’s touch in his hair. “Since you
have plans this weekend.”
“I never said I had plans,” Izaya says immediately. “I was speaking in
hypotheticals. You should learn to listen when people talk, Shizuo.”
Shizuo smiles. “There’s no point with you,” he says, the words sharp but his
tone too warm to even attempt a denial of the affection on his tongue. Izaya’s
fingers catch at his forehead to pull the hair back from his face and Shizuo
lets his head tilt back until his hair is brushing the bed behind his
shoulders. He knows he looks relaxed, knows his expression must look drowsy on
the comfort offered by Izaya’s touch pulling through his hair, but he doesn’t
try to compose it any more than he tries to disguise the soft of the
affectionate indulgence in his voice when he speaks. “Not when half of what you
say is nonsense anyway.”
“You’re getting it now,” is all Izaya says, his voice carrying the same edge of
laughter it ever does; but his fingers are still wandering through Shizuo’s
hair, and Shizuo’s skin is still prickling with the friction, and when Shizuo
says “Sure” it lacks any irritation at all.
He wouldn’t mind staying with Izaya like this forever.
***** Certainty *****
“Really, Shizuo.” Izaya is purring the words, drawling over them with as much
satisfaction as if they’re made of sugar, as if he’s savouring the flavor of
them against his tongue as he looks up through his lashes at Shizuo on the
other side of the kotatsu. “If you had told me it was going to be just us I
would have gotten dressed up for the occasion.”
Shizuo’s mouth twitches, his lips fighting with a smile as his cheeks fight
with a flush of embarrassment. “Shut up,” he tells Izaya. “You’re not the only
one I invited. Everyone else had plans.” It’s not like he minds -- there are
few things Shizuo can think of that he’d rather do than spend the whole of his
Christmas with just Izaya for company -- but he can’t figure out how to match
Izaya’s off-hand flirtation, not with sincerity sticking so rough in his
throat, so he leaves the conclusion unstated and lets the straightforward part
of his reason stand in for the whole.
“What a good thing for you I was available.” Izaya reaches out for the dish of
Go stones next to him and picks one up to toy with at the tips of his fingers.
“Otherwise you’d have to play Go against yourself.”
“It’d be more fun,” Shizuo says, fully aware that his smile is undoing any
claims to honesty this sentence might make. “I might actually win sometimes,
that way.”
“Don’t be a sore loser,” Izaya tells him, setting his piece down with every
appearance of carelessness. Shizuo is sure without looking that it’s a better
move than he would have made. “If you practiced more you could at least put up
a better fight.”
Shizuo snorts. “Like you practice. All you ever do is play that crazy game you
made up for yourself, that doesn’t make you better at Go proper.”
Izaya flutters his lashes and lifts his chin into a put-upon haughtiness. “Some
of us have an inborn talent,” he declares, and Shizuo coughs another laugh as
Izaya’s mouth threatens a smile. “And you’re not that hard to beat.”
“Brat,” Shizuo says, the response more habitual than sincere, and Izaya’s smile
breaks free to sparkle bright behind his eyes as Shizuo reaches for another
piece.
“Who else did you invite that couldn’t make it?” he wants to know as Shizuo
looks down to place his piece with only half his attention on the board in
front of him. “You did know Shinra finally got Celty to agree to a date, didn’t
you?”
“Of course I did.” Shizuo leans back from the board to let Izaya takes his next
move. “He hasn’t stopped talking about it for three days, it’d be difficult to
not know. Kadota had plans with Togusa already.” He shifts his foot under the
kotatsu where it’s pressed close against Izaya’s hip, tipping in closer to gain
an extra purr of pleasant friction up his spine at the contact. “I thought
Kasuka might be around, but he left for a party with a bunch of his friends an
hour ago.”
“Mm.” Izaya stretches a hand out towards his pieces and picks one up between
the very tips of his fingers. “How many dates did he get asked out on this
year?”
Shizuo rolls his eyes. “I don’t even know. A dozen, at least, that he
mentioned.”
Izaya glances across the table at him, his mouth quirking onto a smile. “You
sound so disappointed,” he purrs. “Jealous that your little brother is so much
more popular than you are?”
Shizuo rocks his foot in against Izaya’s hip again. “Why would I be jealous?”
Izaya’s smile pulls wider, going lopsided against the angle of his lips. “He
has so many options,” he says, pressing his fingertips against the piece he’s
holding so it pivots under the weight of his touch. Shizuo can see the tension
along Izaya’s fingers as he moves, can track the elegant flex of the other’s
hand as he toys with the piece; the shift of the motion holds his attention far
more than the subject Izaya is lilting over as he goes on. “A dozen girls
asking him out and lots of parties to choose from, if he doesn’t feel like
settling down to just one admirer.” Izaya’s fingers twist, the Go stone spins
against his hold. “And you’re at home with only your best friend for company.”
Shizuo’s laugh comes easy, responding more to the absurdity in Izaya’s
implication that he would rather be somewhere else than the other’s words.
“Yeah,” he says, letting the reply stretch long with sarcasm as he keeps
watching Izaya play with the Go stone. “I’m really missing out, you know how
crazy all the girls at school are about me.”
Shizuo’s not thinking about his words at all. He’s amused by the idea, the
laughter in his voice more from the simple pleasure of Izaya’s company and
delight at the graceful motions he’s making with the Go piece than anything to
do with the subject at hand. But Izaya’s motion stills, his fingers stalling to
inaction against the stone, and when he says “You could have a girlfriend”
there’s so much bite on the words that Shizuo feels them like a blow, as
clearly as if Izaya had reached across the kotatsu and slapped him. Izaya drops
the piece from his fingertips, catches it into a fist, and Shizuo can see the
strain written into the white of Izaya’s knuckles under his skin even before
the other snaps, “Not everyone at school is terrified of you, even with your
hair.”
Shizuo looks up. Izaya’s glaring at him from across the table, his forehead
creased and eyes crackling with anger for something Shizuo doesn’t understand;
he looks furious, looks like he’s ready to storm out of the room if Shizuo says
the wrong thing. Shizuo has no idea what he’s done, no idea what has set Izaya
off into such an abrupt surge of aggression; but Izaya’s mouth is pulling into
a frown, his lip trembling on something too fragile to be entirely anger, and
Shizuo is still staring at the other’s expression and trying to make sense of
it when Izaya tips his head down to drop the shadow of his hair between them
like a wall.
Shizuo blinks hard, takes a breath of air suddenly gone cold with unexplained
tension. Izaya’s shoulders are hunching over the Go board in front of them, his
head tipped so far forward Shizuo can’t even see the tremor at his mouth
anymore for the weight of his hair.
“They should be,” he offers, trying honesty as a stopgap while he tries to
backtrack over the last few minutes of conversation and figure out what is so
ruffling Izaya’s composure. “I could lose my temper and hurt someone without
even trying.”
“You haven’t hurt me,” Izaya snaps, throwing the words like a conclusive
counterargument to fact.
Shizuo can feel his jaw set, can feel adrenaline starting to crackle into his
veins with irritable impatience for Izaya’s utterly inexplicable mood shift,
for this patently obvious statement that has no bearing at all on Shizuo’s
interactions with the rest of the world. “Of course I haven’t,” he growls.
“You’re--”
You, his mind offers, finishing the statement with an inanity that nonetheless
carries everything that Shizuo needs to say in one word. You’re special. You’re
mine.You’re Izaya. They’re all pointless, all phrases that mean nothing in
speech and everything to Shizuo, all burdened with enough affection to make
them as good as a confession against his lips. He can’t find his voice, can’t
find enough meaning in language to carry everything that Izaya is to him,
everything that makes a bruise at Izaya’s skin ache more than one on his own
would, and while Shizuo’s still reaching for coherency Izaya’s chin lifts, just
barely, just by enough for Shizuo to see the other looking up at him from
behind his hair. His mouth is set, now, the crease at his forehead evaporated
to leave just the dark weight of attention behind his eyes, and Shizuo knows
that he’s never going to be able to find the words he needs with Izaya’s stare
offering something between a dare and a plea for the rest of his sentence. He
looks away instead, following Izaya’s lead in retreating behind his hair, and
when he finally manages “Different,” it feels weak even on his tongue and
tastes like failure in the back of his throat. He can feel his cheeks burning,
can feel his shoulders hunching; when he reaches for his teacup it’s more for
something to do with the shiver of tension in his body than from any real
desire for the liquid.
“You could have one too,” he says, struggling to restart the conversation while
his heart sinks, while his mind wails protest at the lost opportunity for
honesty. It’s that bitterness as much as true jealousy that goes sour on his
tongue, that drags the words “You get confessions every week” so rough and raw
in the back of his throat.
“I do,” Izaya says. He sounds distant, detached; whatever emotion was on his
voice before is gone, now, painted over with the usual facade of uncaring that
twists the knot in Shizuo’s chest the tighter. “I love all of them, Shizuo,
just like I love all humanity.” There’s a click against the Go board, the sound
of Izaya dropping the piece in his hand into place; Shizuo barely glances to
see how it fits into the pattern of the game, can’t spare any attention at all
for the distraction of friendly competition when his breathing is so tangled on
self-deprecation and jealous want at once. “I couldn’t possibly choose just one
human to love more than the others. That wouldn’t be fair to the rest.”
Shizuo feels the words like the rejection they are, like a door slamming shut
in his face to shove back the ever-tentative hope in him of more, of
reciprocation, of a future so hazy with uncertainty he can’t bring himself to
let it take shape even in imagination. He fixes his gaze on the Go board, lets
his shoulders hunch in like they can protect him from the bitter implication on
Izaya’s words, and when he says “Right,” he can hear the audible hurt even as
the word leaves his lips. There’s pressure against his chest, the weight of
violence hissing for expression in some form on someone, and Shizuo keeps
talking, knowing that his disappointment must be clear in his throat but with
self-deprecation too vicious in his thoughts to stall out the words and grant
himself even an attempt at neutrality. “I should have remembered.”
“You should have,” Izaya says, still with that far-off tone like he’s speaking
from a great height, like he’s looking down on Shizuo from such a distance that
he doesn’t hear the emotion dragging Shizuo’s words to roughness, that he
doesn’t see the misery dragging Shizuo’s mouth to a frown. Shizuo shuts his
eyes, grimacing against the ache in his chest; and then Izaya goes on, offering
words without a trace of mockery anywhere in his voice. “Good thing I can make
exceptions for monsters.”
Shizuo’s breathing rushes out of him all at once. He opens his eyes, lifts his
head; but Izaya’s looking down at the Go board again, his mouth set and fingers
pressing against one of the pieces. He looks almost calm, almost passes for
composed; but his breathing is catching, his fingers are trembling, and as
Shizuo stares at him his hold on the piece slips to skid it off-center and an
inch across the board. Izaya’s going red, his cheeks gaining color the longer
Shizuo stares at him, and Shizuo’s sure, he’s sure, there’s no other way to
frame that sentence but with the love so off-hand on Izaya’s lips a moment
before. Shizuo’s heart is racing, disappointment swept aside with the sudden
force of certainty, and Izaya’s still not looking at him but he’s going
crimson, now, he’s ducking his head down farther and taking a desperate breath
and Shizuo can’t fill his lungs, he can’t think clearly but it doesn’t matter,
he’s opening his mouth anyway, words are pushing at his throat and spilling
over his tongue and he’s going to say it, he’s going to tell him, Izaya’s given
him all the pieces of a confession and Shizuo has to say it, his racing heart
won’t let him be silent.
“Izaya--”
“I mean,” Izaya gasps, blurting the words over Shizuo’s with a haste like he’s
drowning, like he must speak now or die. “It’d be hard to not even have a best
friend.” He reaches out to push against the stones on the Go board, though his
hand is shaking so badly Shizuo can’t tell if he’s trying to realign them or
just push them more off-center. “I’d have to go back to playing Go against
myself, you know.”
Shizuo can’t answer for a moment. His mouth is full of his unspoken confession,
I love you heavy like bitter chocolate melting over his tongue. But Izaya’s
shoulders are hunching forward over the kotatsu, and his breathing is catching
loud in the space between them, and Shizuo doesn’t know what it is he’s so
afraid of but he doesn’t need to understand to see the signs of panic trembling
through every line of Izaya’s body. Honesty is weighting on his tongue and
clenching like a fist around his heart; but Izaya is taut with fear of what
Shizuo might say, looking more terrified now than he ever has when facing down
the other’s strength, and so Shizuo swallows back the weight of his words, and
takes a breath to fill his aching lungs, and says “Ah,” as if Izaya’s statement
conveyed anything at all other than sudden, irrational panic. “Right.” Izaya
stays still, silent as if he’s waiting for a mortal blow to fall, and Shizuo
casts about for another topic, for something to offer to the other as proof
that he’s backing away from the apparent danger of the subject at hand. His
gaze drops to the board, to Izaya’s fingers still bracing the misplaced stones,
and when he opens his mouth it’s to say “That isn’t where those pieces were”
with as much forced casualness as he can muster for the words.
It doesn’t feel like enough. It feels forced, desperate, transparent even to
his own ears. But Izaya’s shoulders ease, and when he says “Oh?” his voice is
clear enough to speak to his relief even before he lifts his head to smile up
at Shizuo with something like his usual energy. “Are you trying to cheat to
gain the upper hand, now?”
It’s a stupid subject change. In another situation Shizuo would frown at the
attempt, would push back to force them onto their previous track. But Izaya is
smiling again, his eyes bright and his mouth curving with the energy of
relieved tension, and so Shizuo lets the point stand, protests “I’m not
cheating” with as much force as if he actually cares about defending himself
from this baseless accusation.
It’s surrender, Shizuo knows, it’s yet another failure to give voice to the
affection that always glows sunbright in his veins whenever Izaya is around.
But he saw the panic in Izaya’s shoulders and trembling against his lips, and
even if it’s a loss he thinks it’s worth it to have the other’s teasing smile
back in place and bright behind his eyes. There’s certainty pressing against
his ribcage, now, assurance of Izaya’s feelings tangling inextricably with his
own, and Shizuo might not understand why Izaya is so afraid of putting voice to
them but he knows what he heard, and no amount of changing the subject is going
to shake that awareness now that he has it.
If Izaya reciprocates any part of Shizuo’s feelings, Shizuo will wait as long
as the other needs before he admits it.
***** Hold *****
Izaya’s watching when Shizuo graduates.
Shizuo hadn’t been completely sure he would be. They’ve been talking around it
for weeks, not-mentioning the upcoming ceremony with an attention that only
increased in focus as the announcements at school became more common; even
Shinra seems to have picked up on the tension that has been settling into
Izaya’s spine like it’s making itself a home for the summer and refrains from
too much exuberance about Celty’s planned attendance at the ceremony over the
few lunchtimes they have left to spend together. Izaya met Shizuo on the walk
to school the morning of as usual, chattered aimlessly about random subjects
over the entire distance, and Shizuo heard nothing of the meaning of Izaya’s
words for how closely he was listening to the strain under the other’s voice as
he spoke.
They separate as soon as they’re past the gates, Shizuo swept off into the
preparations for the official ceremony and Izaya left to fall in with the other
underclassmen, and Shizuo is sure that tension audible under Izaya’s voice will
carry him off to the rooftop, or past the front gates completely, to somewhere
he can avoid the reality of Shizuo’s graduation with the dexterity he is always
so quick to display when dodging unpleasant situations. Shizuo doesn’t see him
in the hall for the ceremony when he attempts a few surreptitious glances,
either in the rows of second-years or standing in the back along with the few
latecomers, and by the time he’s making his way to the front of the room to
receive his diploma he’s sure Izaya’s not there at all, is already trying to
figure out the first place to look for him after they’re released. But there’s
a shiver along his spine as he climbs the steps to the stage, a prickle of
self-consciousness like the stage fright he’s never felt before, and as he
takes his diploma and turns out to face the crowd it’s not Kadota’s easy smile
or Shinra’s enthusiastic clapping he sees first but Izaya, standing far in the
back of the room where the corner of the wall hid him from Shizuo’s earlier
consideration. He’s not smiling, he’s not clapping; he’s just staring, watching
Shizuo with as much fixed attention in his eyes as if the other is likely to
evaporate if Izaya lets his focus go for so much as the span of a heartbeat.
Shizuo’s heart skids, his breathing catches, and then he has to turn and return
back down the stairs to make space for the next graduate.
His skin is still tingling with the weight of Izaya’s gaze when he sits back
down, his breathing still coming faster, and even knowing he should be watching
the stage and that he won’t be able to see Izaya anyway doesn’t stop him from
looking back over his shoulder in a futile attempt to catch a glimpse of the
other boy. The rest of the ceremony stretches long, with the rhythm of Shizuo’s
heartbeat to drag the minutes endless, and then they’re released from their
seats and Shizuo is turning for the far corner of the hall before he can think.
He’s ready to bolt for the shadows, ready to push his way through the crowd to
catch Izaya before he disappears again; but Kadota and Shinra catch him first,
Kadota grinning congratulations and Shinra gesturing wildly in an attempt to
get more of Celty’s attention than they already have. Shizuo can’t see Izaya
any more at all, can’t even make an attempt at moving to find him, and Kadota’s
gripping at his shoulder and saying “Congratulations” in the low rumble that
always manages to cut through the higher range of sound offered by a crowd. “We
did it.”
“We did, didn’t we?” Shinra chirps, achieving through volume what Kadota
manages by tone. “Not that I’m finished with school yet, I’ve still got some
training ahead of me, but it’s still a milestone to be celebrated. Celty!” And
he’s waving again, flailing an arm through the air and beaming as Celty
approaches swathed in a hat and a scarf that cast everything above her neck
entirely into shadow.
“He’s never going to learn any restraint,” Kadota sighs.
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “If he hasn’t yet…”
“How does adulthood feel, Shizuo-senpai?”
The voice is sharp, carrying clear over the murmur of the crowd and even
Shinra’s enthusiastic greeting as Celty comes forward into range of a hug.
Shizuo’s turning at the first word, his attention pulled irresistibly sideways
by that tone, and Izaya’s standing just behind him, his hands in his pockets
and his mouth fixed into a lopsided smile that stays firmly at his lips without
touching his eyes.
“Hey,” Kadota says, and “Orihara-kun!” Shinra calls, but “Izaya,” Shizuo
breathes, all the tension in his chest rushing out of him on the sound, and
it’s Shizuo that Izaya looks at, Shizuo who gets the first glance from those
unsmiling eyes.
“Senpai,” Izaya says, and then, with his smile going wider as if it’s cracking
open, “I guess I shouldn’t call you that anymore, huh?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shizuo says, and he’s reaching out without thinking, his
touch drawn by the tension straining against Izaya’s shoulders as clearly as it
is laid behind those dark eyes. His arm fits around Izaya’s shoulders as well
as it ever has, as comfortably as if it was made to rest there, and when he
pulls Izaya stumbles forward in submission to the force the same as he always
does. “Nothing’s different.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that,” Izaya tells him, so lightly Shizuo would
believe the show of uncaring tugging a smile at the other’s mouth if he
couldn’t feel the tension across Izaya’s shoulders under his arm. “I still have
a whole year to get through and you’re already telling me graduation is
pointless?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Shizuo protests, but he doesn’t have a good follow-up
for what he does mean, so he lets it stand at that, contenting himself instead
with tightening his hold against Izaya’s far shoulder so he can pull the other
in close against his side, like he’s trying to fit the angle of Izaya’s body
against the thud of his heart in his chest. “I didn’t think you were going to
be here.”
“Of course I was going to watch,” Izaya says, his voice only a little bit
muffled by the way he has his head turned in against Shizuo’s shoulder. “I
couldn’t miss my senpai’s high school graduation.”
Shizuo can’t see Izaya’s face. The dark of the other’s hair is falling over his
eyes, the angle of the way they’re standing together hiding any expression that
might be clinging to his lips. Even his voice is flat, aiming for a taunt but
lacking the energy to actually achieve it. Still, Shizuo keeps looking at the
top of Izaya’s head, keeps his arm around the other’s shoulders, and when he
speaks it’s to say, “I’ll be here for yours,” as quietly as he can manage to
keep the words just between the two of them. Izaya’s shoulders tense, his spine
stiffening under the weight of Shizuo’s arm, but he doesn’t step away, and
Shizuo doesn’t let his hold ease. “Next year.”
“That’s easy for you to say now,” Izaya says, still without lifting his head
and with his voice odd and strained on something Shizuo can’t read from behind
the barrier of his hair. “That’s a whole year away, how can you be so sure of
yourself?”
“I will,” Shizuo says, and lets his hold on Izaya’s shoulder go to slide his
hand up so he can press his fingers into the dark of the other’s hair. Izaya
takes a breath, loud enough that Shizuo can hear it even against his jacket,
but when Shizuo pulls Izaya tips sideways in surrender to the force, leaning in
until his head is pressed hard against Shizuo’s shoulder. Shizuo can feel his
heart pounding in his chest, pride and loss and anxious affection all tangling
together into a single too-fast rhythm coming hard under the pale of his coat.
He wonders if Izaya can hear it, wonders if Izaya will be able to pick out the
outline of infatuation from the pattern, wonders if Izaya would say anything
even if he did. “It’s only a year, Izaya.”
For a moment Izaya doesn’t move, to shift or to speak or even to huff a laugh
against Shizuo’s coat. Then he lifts his hand, just one, freeing his fingers
from where they’ve been pressed hard between his hip and Shizuo’s; Shizuo can
feel the shift against him, can feel the proof of the action a moment before
Izaya’s fingertips touch the bottom edge of his jacket and Izaya’s hand curls
in hard against the last inch of the hem on the pale blue coat. He doesn’t say
anything, doesn’t lift his head; but his hand tightens into a fist, his hold
going unbreakable against Shizuo’s jacket, and Shizuo can feel the weight of
that hold tangle as close around his heart as Izaya’s fingers are caught around
his clothes.
Shizuo doesn’t pull away. It would take a lot more than a year to undo the hold
Izaya has on him, even if he wanted to try.
***** Unexpected *****
It’s easier to find a job than Shizuo expected it would be.
He was ready for weeks of searching, of wading through phone calls and
interviews and endless rejections before he found a position requiring skills
he has along with a tolerance for the implications of the bleached-blond hair
he has maintained since high school began. He tells himself he’s ready for
this, that he’s braced himself for weeks and maybe months of unrewarded effort;
but he only makes it through one brief interview and subsequent rejection
before the second location he asks, with a posting in the window for Help
Needed in clean printed letters, offers him a job on the spot, almost for the
asking. Shizuo is sure at first there must be some mistake, tries to explain
that he has no experience with customer service and none at all with drinking,
much less the bartending they seem to be looking for; but the man on the other
side of the table just smiles, and waves aside Shizuo’s protests with promises
of training and patience, and Shizuo leaves with a folded uniform under his arm
and a training schedule that begins the next day.
Shizuo had hoped, during the walk back home and relaying the good news to his
mother’s surprise and Kasuka’s unruffled acceptance, that he might turn out to
have some as-yet-untapped skill at bartending, that perhaps he’ll pick up the
bottles and produce something amazing at his first attempt. This turns out to
be very nearly the opposite of the case. Shizuo has no experience with alcohol
and no real way to learn anything like a taste for it, with his age still
preventing him from trying any of the drinks he actually makes and the
proportions of the recipes he’s meant to memorize eluding him even with someone
talking him through the process as he works. He’s more than half-expecting to
be fired every hour of his first day, as his lack of ability becomes abundantly
clear to both himself and his supervisor; but he’s told to come back the next
day, and the next, and if he spends more time practicing drink recipes than
anything else this doesn’t seem to be of any great concern to his new employer.
Shizuo finds this inexplicable, can’t make any sense out of the situation even
as the week continues and he keeps arriving to fumble his way through another
several hours of training; but he doesn’t get fired, and by the middle of the
week he’s fairly sure he’s not going to be, in spite of his demonstrated lack
of skills for his place of employment. It’s a comfort of sorts, even if Shizuo
can’t figure out why he remains employed at this particular location, and it
gives him something to do with the hours of his day other than fret over what
Izaya is or isn’t doing all alone at high school. It’s vaguely pleasant to lose
himself in running through drink recipes in his head, to work through the
actual process of mixing them in the lulls between the rare afternoon customer,
and Shizuo finds himself falling into a rhythm of thought to match his actions
during the long hours of his training shifts.
He’s in the middle of a quiet period right now. Early afternoon is always
peaceful, with no one to fill seats at the bar except for the bare handful of
well-dressed men and women who settle into booths with drinks they barely touch
and never complain about, no matter how terribly Shizuo confuses the given
recipe. There’s no one at the bar counter at all, right now, just the shadow of
the man lingering at the door to keep out any underage customers, and Shizuo is
free to duck his head and lose himself to the pattern of working through one of
the more complicated recipes that he is still struggling to remember even in
part. It’s soothing, in a way, an easy distraction of motion and reaching for
half-forgotten details that leaves the back of his mind free to wander over far
more familiar routes, to backtrack to the familiarity of Raijin and the weight
of a blue coat around narrow shoulders, to call up the cut of Izaya’s smile and
the edge on his laugh like the echo of some favorite song in Shizuo’s mind. It
makes his chest ache, makes his heart pound the faster in the chest, and his
hands are still moving but his thoughts are entirely absent from his work, now,
they’re trailing over familiar concerns and half-formed panic that only carries
the more weight for its formlessness, and then there’s a voice, “Imagine
meeting you in a place like this” with so much shadowed-over flirtation on the
words Shizuo wouldn’t recognize the tone under them if it were from anyone
other than exactly who it is.
His head jerks up at once, his attention skidding up in a reaction as immediate
as it is involuntary. There’s no way it can be -- but it is, of course it is,
Shizuo would never mistake anyone else’s voice for Izaya’s, and there he is
himself, elbows weighting at the edge of the bar counter and smile so bright it
strikes sparks off the dark of his eyes.
“Izaya,” Shizuo blurts, shock giving itself voice before he can even attempt to
catch back the startled warmth in his tone. “What are you doinghere?”
Izaya’s smile tugs wider at the corner of his mouth, showing a flash of teeth
white in the dim of the bar. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asks instead of
answering, his lashes fluttering into weight as Shizuo stares at him. “It’s
been days, I expected you to be pining for the pleasure of my company at this
point.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” Shizuo informs him while his heart races itself
into glowing delight at the unexpected pleasure of Izaya here, in front of him,
close enough for Shizuo to catch the taste of licorice on his tongue when he
breathes in. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“It’s a holiday.”
Shizuo frowns. “It is not.”
“It is for me.” Izaya slides his arm across the counter and braces himself
against the middle so he can tip forward against the support and lean over to
look down at the far side where Shizuo is standing; for just a moment his hair
is close enough for Shizuo to see the individual strands as they slide with the
motion, to see the shift of color catch into illumination even under the dim
gold of the lighting in the bar. “What are you doing, Shizuo, that looks like
you’re trying to poison someone.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo says without looking down at the ruined drink in front of
him, without looking away from the play of shadows across Izaya’s hair that
catch at the other’s lashes as he looks up to smirk at Shizuo again. “You
shouldn’t even be in here, you’re not old enough to get in.”
Izaya’s lashes flutter, his smile eases into something darker; when he draws
back from the counter it takes everything Shizuo has to not lean in to trail
him over the distance. “Neither are you,” Izaya says, bracing a hand against
the edge of the bar as he slides onto the edge of the barstool in front of
Shizuo. “How on earth did you manage to get this job?” His gaze slides away
from Shizuo’s face again to dip down towards the half-full cup in front of the
other. “I bet I could make a better cocktail than you could.”
Shizuo can feel his shoulders tense at this reminder of his too-recent
failures. “I’m getting trained,” he says, still without looking away from
Izaya’s face. “They said they needed the help and it would be worth the effort
to teach me.”
Izaya looks back up to him. His mouth twitches with unvoiced laughter. “Not
going well, then?”
“Be quiet,” Shizuo tells him, and looks away to grab at the glass in front of
him to pour out the half-made drink inside. He’s forgotten what he was doing
anyway. “How did you find out I was working here?”
Izaya huffs a laugh. “Gossip,” he says. “There’s not so many too-young
bartenders with bleached blond hair in Ikebukuro that one is going to go
unnoticed.” His gaze slides off Shizuo’s face and down to the line of his
shoulders; when he braces himself against the counter this time Shizuo is ready
for it, holds perfectly still as Izaya stretches out one hand to ghost his
fingers against the dark of the other’s vest. “A uniform, huh?”
Shizuo has to swallow to get enough moisture back in his mouth to speak.
“Yeah,” he says, and he can feel the one word rumbling in the inside of his
chest, fitting itself to shadow to match the thud of his heartbeat coming
faster under the breathless touch of Izaya’s fingers against him. Izaya’s not
looking at Shizuo’s face; he’s watching the slide of his touch as he trails it
against the edge of the other’s vest, the sharp edge of his smile easing into
unconscious attention as his mouth goes soft with focus. Shizuo doesn’t look
away from the curve of Izaya’s lips as he opens his mouth to offer some semi-
appropriate response to maintain what he can of the conversation. “Got out of
Raijin’s and into this one.”
Izaya doesn’t answer. He’s still staring at his fingers, his attention so
focused on their movement Shizuo isn’t sure he’s heard the words at all. The
weight of his touch lifts, skips up, and Shizuo is just taking a breath to
steady his heartrate when Izaya’s gaze lands at his throat instead, the other’s
focus clinging to the weight of the tie clipped close over the crisp of
Shizuo’s shirt, and all Shizuo’s body goes still with sudden expectation. Izaya
doesn’t look at his face, doesn’t lift his gaze to see the way Shizuo is
staring at him; he just reaches out, leaning far over the counter as his
fingertips stretch out to press gently against the folds of dark fabric drawn
into the bow against Shizuo’s collar. Shizuo has to swallow against the
pressure, as if the featherlight drag of Izaya’s fingers carries enough force
to cut off the ease of his breathing, as if the other’s touch is heavy enough
to leave him gasping and lightheaded for want of air; but when he moves it’s to
tip his chin up to give Izaya more freedom, to better offer the line of his tie
for the other’s inspection. Izaya’s lashes dip, his touch shifts; for a moment
his fingertips are within a breath of Shizuo’s neck, his touch so near Shizuo
is sure the pounding of his heart will flutter against the weight of the
other’s skin. Then Izaya ducks his chin, his gaze dragged away by the motion of
his head, and his touch is pulling back while Shizuo is still filling his lungs
with a breath as much resignation as relief.
“It looks good,” Izaya says, and it’s only then that he lifts his gaze back to
meet Shizuo’s stare, that he musters a lopsided smile as if the curve of his
lips will be enough to keep Shizuo’s attention away from the heated shadows
behind his eyes. “I should ask if the Awakusu can give you a whole bunch so you
can have extras.”
Shizuo blinks, his attention to the unsatisfied expectation still shimmering in
his veins flickering out at the suddenness of this subject change. “The
Awakusu? What do the yakuza have to do with anything?”
Izaya smiles slow, amusement spreading out to almost eclipse the unacknowledged
darkness in the stare he’s still fixing on Shizuo. He braces his elbow against
the bar counter, presses his chin against the support of his palm; his fingers
catch to land just over the line of his jaw. “Shizuo,” he purrs, his voice all
smoke and condescension in the air between them. “How do you think I got in
here?”
It takes Shizuo a moment to catch up. His thoughts are falling behind,
lingering against the pressure of Izaya’s fingers at his collar and imprinting
the weight of the other’s touch into his memory with picture-perfect precision.
It’s only as he frowns himself into some measure of coherency that he realizes
that Izaya shouldn’t be here, that his age alone should keep him on the other
side of the door. The realization is enough to pull his attention swinging up
towards the bar door and the shadow of the man standing in front of it, enough
to draw an “Oh,” of sudden confusion to his lips. He backtracks through the
last few moments of conversation, reaching for some kind of understanding from
the purr of Izaya’s voice over his words; and then he gets it all at once, puts
together the implication of Izaya’s barely-restrained laughter with the
suggestion of his implicitly allowed presence and comes up with a single
obvious answer of exactly who his employers are. “Oh.”
“It’s probably why they hired you,” Izaya offers conversationally. He’s still
watching Shizuo’s face when the other looks back at him, his mouth still
clinging to the weight of a smile that only tugs wider when Shizuo sees it.
“Since they can’t get information on you by their usual means.”
Shizuo knows enough to make a guess as to who that source is, even if Izaya
weren’t grinning self-satisfaction at his own hand in the matter. “You mean
you.”
“How did you guess?” Izaya purrs, sounding not at all sorry for his work
dealing with the yakuza before he’s even graduated high school.
Shizuo rolls his eye and, looks back to the shadow of the man by the front
door. His skin is prickling with self-consciousness with this new piece of
information, as if he’s summoning up retroactive guilt for the identity of his
employer now that he has it. All he’s done is mix unpalatable drinks and show
up for a few days’ worth of training; but everything that seemed minor at first
is collecting a shadow around it with this revelation, as if he can be
implicated in unscrupulous pursuits just by the weight of the awareness in his
mind. “Shit,” he says, softly enough that no one but Izaya will be able to hear
him. “Should I--”
“Don’t bother.” Izaya speaks fast, dropping his words with the force of a knife
to stall Shizuo’s speech while it’s still in his throat; when Shizuo looks back
at him Izaya’s eyes are fixed on him, his mouth still curving against the
outline of a smile gone soft and secret. “The Awakusu are involved in almost
every business in the city, either directly or indirectly. If you’re working
you won’t be able to avoid them entirely, and it could be a lot more dangerous
than getting trained to bartend at a nice place like this.”
Shizuo frowns. “How many bars have you been to, Izaya?”
Izaya’s smile lacks the precision Shizuo’s question suggests, but the dark
behind his lashes says too many clearly enough for Shizuo to huff a half-voiced
groan of frustration at this new epiphany. The sound makes Izaya’s smile go
wider, pulling hard enough at the corners of his mouth to sparkle into his eyes
as he soothes “The point is don’t worry about it” as casually as if letting go
of worry is something Shizuo can do the same way he lets go of the breath in
his lungs. Izaya’s gaze drops from Shizuo’s face, trailing down the line of his
shoulder and across his chest again, and Shizuo can feel his breathing catch in
anticipation a moment before Izaya stretches his hand out again to press his
fingertips to Shizuo’s vest.
“Besides,” he says, “The uniform is snappy.” He glances up to catch Shizuo
staring at him; his mouth tugs onto a smile, his lashes shift under the fall of
his hair. “It makes you look almost human after all.”
Shizuo can feel his whole face glow into the sudden crimson of heat. “Shut up,”
he says, reaching up to push at the too-light weight of Izaya’s touch against
his shoulder. Izaya just laughs, drawing his hand back before Shizuo can quite
decide if he really wants him to or not and resuming his lean against the bar
counter rather than continuing to casually intrude into Shizuo’s personal
space.
“You should make me something,” he says, bracing his elbow at the counter so he
can lean his chin against the support of his hand as he smiles at Shizuo. “I’ll
try your worst, let me see how much natural talent you have.”
“No way,” Shizuo growls. “You’re not even eighteen yet, I’m not going to
provide you with alcohol while I’m at work.”
“No one here would mind.” Izaya doesn’t even have the grace to look
embarrassed. “They all know who I am.”
“That is not reassuring,” Shizuo tells him, caught somewhere between the threat
of a laugh at Izaya’s casual declaration and familiar worry pressing against
his ribs as if to remind him it’s still there, as if he had forgotten it for
even a moment. Protest is useless, Shizuo knows, as likely to succeed now as it
ever has in the past; but he tries anyway, pinning the words down with as much
sincere concern as he can manage for the growl of frustrated fear in his
throat. “You should be in class, not out making deals with the Ikebukuro
underground.”
“I’m not,” Izaya tells him without even pausing for breath. “I’m taking my day
off to visit my friend at his new job.” His smile is very bright from across
the width of the bar counter. “I could be getting into all kinds of trouble
without you. Aren’t you glad I came to visit instead?”
Izaya’s voice says he’s teasing. His gaze is steady, his mouth curving onto
amusement that promises this question is more deliberate mockery than sincere.
But Shizuo’s heart is still beating too-fast in his chest, and his attention is
still clinging to the dark of Izaya’s hair and the soft edge of his coat collar
weighting loose at his shoulders, and for a moment honesty is too sharp and
clear on his tongue for him to find the strength to hold it back.
“Yeah,” he says, and ducks his head to hide the glow of color that spreads
across his cheeks, that warms under the surface of his skin like it’s trying to
light up all the tells of his affection clear enough for both of them to stop
turning away from as they have been for years. Shizuo takes a breath, feels the
pressure of it inside his chest, feels a smile of pure happiness tugging at the
corner of his mouth. “It’s good to see you.”
There’s a beat of silence. Shizuo doesn’t know what expression Izaya is making
on the other side of the counter, but after a moment he can hear the sound of
the other’s inhale, can hear the tension of laughter under the sound even
before Izaya lilts, “You missed me,” with certainty pinning down the corners of
amusement on his voice. When Shizuo lifts his head Izaya is grinning at him,
self-confidence bright in his smile and weighting behind the dark of his eyes,
until even when Shizuo frowns all Izaya meets him with is a laugh that goes
through all Shizuo’s body like the electricity he has been so aching for for
the last few days.
Shizuo doesn’t agree aloud, doesn’t give voice to support the laughing delight
in Izaya’s throat. He’s sure it’s clear in the lack of denial he gives, in the
way he reaches out across the counter to push against Izaya’s shoulder in a
show of irritation with no force behind it, is sure that Izaya knows the truth
of the statement the same way Shizuo can taste knowledge of the inverse
implication like the sweet of vanilla clinging to his tongue.
Izaya’s the one who came looking for him, after all.
***** Carrying *****
Shizuo misses Izaya.
He didn’t realize it would be so hard after he graduated. He can remember the
year apart they spent while Shizuo was attending Raijin and Izaya was still
finishing middle school; the days were long, he knows, he can remember
lunchtimes stretching endlessly over half-formed concern for something he
didn’t know enough to properly worry over, remembers classes that he entirely
missed for the distraction of thinking about what Izaya was doing, where he
was, who he was thinking of. But there was always the end of the school day to
look forward to, always the walk home to the darkened windows of the Orihara
house or the warm glow of Shizuo’s own; even studying for tests or finishing
homework happened with Izaya’s feet pressing against Shizuo’s hip, or Shizuo’s
shoulder leaning against Izaya’s, or Izaya’s fingers curling distraction
through Shizuo’s hair. Shizuo hadn’t realized, then, how much of a comfort the
other’s presence in the afternoons had been; he had only felt the lack of
shared schoolday hours, had looked forward to Izaya’s start at Raijin with a
focus that felt like the last great countdown of his life. He hadn’t thought
about his graduation then, hadn’t thought about the demands of a job and the
misalignment of working hours with high school classes, and now he feels the
lack like retroactive judgment, like a weight the heavier for his lack of
appreciation of what he had before. Full days go by, now, without him hearing
from Izaya with anything more than a short text message or a rushed phone call;
once Shizuo goes a week without seeing the other either at his home or in the
dark shadows of the bar Izaya’s not meant to be in but visits anyway. Shizuo’s
busy, of course, he has plenty to fill his days and his hours whether he’s
working or not; but he aches for Izaya, he feels the other’s absence like a gap
in his life, like the form that was meant to be alongside him has gone missing
and left him to figure out how to function without it. He feels off-balance all
the time, like he’s trying to play the part of a role not quite the right size
for him; and if he thinks, sometimes, that this just a required step in the
eternal forward progress of adulthood, he’s not sure he likes it much at all.
He’s thinking about it while he’s walking home from work one day, pacing out
the blocks of distance between his family’s house and the bar where he works as
a better way to spend the time than alone in his room hoping for a text message
that probably won’t come. He doesn’t have anything to say to Izaya, nothing
exciting to report in his life other than the obvious work is tiring or the
less obvious but just as true I miss you that Shizuo still, even now, isn’t
sure Izaya would want to hear. He’s still thinking about it, loneliness
pressing close enough against the rhythm of his breathing that it sounds like a
good idea, that the thought of giving voice in some format to the ache of want
in his throat seems like a relief, when he sees the dark of a familiar jacket
out of the corner of his eye on the sidewalk in front of him.
Shizuo thinks, at first, that he’s imagining things. He’s starting seeing Izaya
everywhere since his graduation, and every time he lifts his head to glance at
an incoming customer or jogs to the corner of a cross-street to look after a
half-glimpsed passerby it’s never who he thought it was, never who he hoped to
see. Izaya is in school, Shizuo hopes, or in darker parts of town than Shizuo
frequents, he suspects, and even as he’s lifting his head on too-fast reflex
he’s flinching back from inevitable disappointment, bracing himself against the
flare of unhappiness that will come with the sudden dashing of his brief hope.
It’ll just be a dark shirt, or maybe a jacket flaring too-wide in the wind -
- but he sees the dark of the coat, and he sees the fur lining the collar and
cuffs, and then the wearer lifts a hand to slide into his pocket with casual
grace and Shizuo knows beyond question who it is.
“Hey!” he shouts, his voice coming out odd and strained in his throat as it
forces its way past hope and excitement too sudden for him to easily force
down. Izaya doesn’t turn, doesn’t react at all to Shizuo calling after him, but
it doesn’t make a difference; Shizuo is tipping forward into a run anyway,
falling into the easy length of full strides to catch up with Izaya’s unhurried
pace down the sidewalk. His heart is pounding harder, his mouth pulling on a
smile, and even as he comes closer Izaya doesn’t turn around, doesn’t show any
sign that he heard either Shizuo’s call or the pace of the other’s approaching
footsteps. He’s within reach, his shoulder is close enough for Shizuo to reach
out and touch; and Shizuo does, stretching out his hand over the distance, and
his fingertips skim cloth just as Izaya twists sharply under his hold to face
him. Izaya’s face is set, his shoulders straining on tension, his hand sweeping
out; and there’s something in his hand, a bright flash of light that Shizuo
recoils from even before he has a chance to blink and parse it into the glint
of light off a knife edge.
“Fuck,” Shizuo blurts, adrenaline spilling to voice from his lips as he
recognizes the weapon Izaya has in his hand. He’s still too close, there’s no
way he can move quickly enough to draw back from the thrust of the blade
towards him; except that Izaya’s eyes go wide, Izaya’s feet stumble backwards
and away, and then he’s falling to the ground in a display of clumsiness so
wholly unlike his usual grace that Shizuo’s heart clenches on panic even before
he hears Izaya’s huff of air at his impact with the sidewalk. He lands hard
against his left hip before Shizuo can take a step in to try to catch him;
Shizuo’s movement comes late, delayed by a handful of seconds while his brain
catches up with the shock of the events of the last few minutes, but Izaya’s
still on the sidewalk when he steps forward to drop to a knee, still bracing
himself against an elbow with a set line at his mouth that speaks to barely-
repressed pain at his sudden fall.
“What the fuck, Izaya,” Shizuo blurts, reaching out before he can think for the
other’s shoulder. He doesn’t quite make contact -- his fingers catch against
his own uncertainty to hover in the air over the other’s coat -- but the
impulse is there, the desire to press his hands against Izaya and reassure
himself of the other’s safety too strong to wholly fight back. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Izaya says shortly, without looking up to meet Shizuo’s gaze. He twists
his wrist to snap the blade of the knife in his hand back into the handle; the
motion draws Shizuo’s attention to the casual grace of the action, to the
movement that speaks so loud of familiarity that concern surges high enough in
Shizuo to drown out even his appreciation of the angle of Izaya’s fingers and
the clean flex of his wrist. “You could try being a little less intimidating
when you’re saying hi, Shizuo.”
“I didn’t think you were going to pull a knife on me,” Shizuo protests. “What
the hell are you doing here?”
“All kinds of things,” Izaya says, and pushes himself hard against the sidewalk
to get to his feet without looking at the other. He’s moving down the sidewalk
before Shizuo can react, striding away while the other is still staring shock
after him. It takes Shizuo a moment to respond, another to move; by the time
he’s on his feet Izaya is halfway down the block and walking away with a
strange too-fast gait, like he’s trying to move away from Shizuo’s line of
sight as fast as possible.
“You’re not supposed to be out this late,” Shizuo offers as he catches up with
Izaya’s forced-fast stride and looks at the other sideways so he can see his
deliberately blank expression. “It’s way past curfew.”
“Is it really?” Izaya glances at Shizuo sideways, his mouth quirking sharp on a
smile. “I get into so much trouble without you, I can’t even tell the time.”
Shizuo sets his jaw. “Don’t be a brat,” he says, with no hope of obedience and
more concern than anything else under the words. Izaya looks away again,
dropping his gaze as his smile flickers and fades to unreadable blankness.
“What were you doing?”
“Business.” Izaya won’t meet Shizuo’s gaze; he’s staring straight ahead
instead, his jaw set and eyes focused on something pointedly not-Shizuo. “I was
working just like you were.”
“My job doesn’t require me to carry a weapon on me.”
“Of course not,” Izaya snaps back with instant bite under the words. “You’re a
weapon all in yourself, you don’t need anything more than your body to defend
yourself.”
“You shouldn’t need to defend yourself at all.” Shizuo’s hand comes up, his
fingers catching and skimming against Izaya’s shoulder as if to smooth away the
tension straining under the other’s coat, as if to persuade him into some near-
calm instead of the tight-wound stress clear in the line of his mouth as well
as the hunch of his shoulders. Shizuo’s heart aches on worry, on panic, on
affection pulled into the pain of concern without a more immediate grounding
point for the energy in his veins. “You should be safe at home.”
“If I wanted to be safe I wouldn’t be friends with you,” Izaya says, the words
coming with abruptness too immediate to be anything but sincerity, and he looks
up all at once to stare at Shizuo, moving so quickly Shizuo almost doesn’t see
the way his step falters, the way his knee shifts and nearly buckles before he
can catch his weight to steadiness. Izaya’s jaw is still set, bracing hard
against the frustration crackling in his voice, and his eyes are dark, like
he’s set a wall behind them to turn the shadow of his stare into a dare to meet
and match Shizuo’s observation. “Why do you think I talked to you in middle
school in the first place?”
Shizuo can feel his heart skip. There’s a bite under Izaya’s words, a vicious
weight behind his eyes as if he’s sincerely angry with Shizuo, as if he wants
nothing at all to do with him; but stripped of its usual flirtatious weight and
distracting laughter his voice sounds the more sincere for its aggression, as
if he’s traded politeness in exchange for sudden honesty. The words hit like a
blow, like Izaya has reached out to smack open-handed across Shizuo’s face with
the full weight of the danger Shizuo carries in the tension of his muscles and
the breadth of his shoulders. But there’s something else too, the warmth of
sudden epiphany breaking over Shizuo’s mind with such clarity that it overrides
the first immediate shock of the words into wide-eyed surprise. Izaya looks
away at once, ducking his head and setting his jaw so hard Shizuo can see the
strain settling itself into place under his skin, but Shizuo doesn’t turn his
head, doesn’t break his focus as Izaya keeps forcing himself down the sidewalk.
His hands are at fists at his sides, his pace so deliberately even it looks
like a stranger’s, like Izaya is imitating a normal stride instead of his usual
graceful elegance, and Shizuo has a whole list of questions he’d like to ask
and answers he’d like to demand but they can wait until the major issue is
resolved.
Shizuo clears his throat. “You’re limping.”
“I’m not.” Izaya doesn’t look up, barely opens his mouth enough to get the
words out. “You’re imagining things.”
Shizuo considers the shadow hiding Izaya’s eyes, the tension in the fists he’s
making of his hands, the stubborn determination straining all across his
shoulders. Then he takes a half-step closer and lets his arm swing out sideways
to bump his hand just against Izaya’s hip. He’s expecting a hiss of pain, maybe
a stutter in the other’s stride; but Izaya collapses as if he’s a puppet with
his strings cut, the support of his leg giving way so entirely it’s only Shizuo
grabbing at his arm to catch him that keeps him from toppling to the sidewalk
again.
“You’re a liar,” Shizuo says, the words coming soft with sincerity as he holds
Izaya’s weight steady by the grip he has on the other’s arm. “You can’t walk
home like that. Let me carry you.”
Izaya’s laugh is sharp, brittle and jagged at the edges like broken glass, but
he’s not trying to drag himself free of Shizuo’s hold, isn’t even looking up to
meet the other’s gaze. “What, you want to take a turn at playing the hero
instead of the monster?”
“Izaya,” Shizuo says, impatience with this too-familiar taunt spilling free
into the clarity of concern at his lips and the pressure of affectionate worry
tight in his chest at Izaya’s too-deliberate walk, at how much of the other’s
weight he’s supporting even now. Izaya’s head comes up, his gaze catching to
hold Shizuo’s; his mouth is startled-soft, his lips parted on the shock of
Shizuo’s reaction, his eyes wide and dark as he stares up at the other. He
blinks hard, his cheeks start to flush, and Shizuo says “Let me,” with all the
immovable determination on the words that he can find.
Izaya stares up at him for another long moment. He really is blushing, now; he
opens his mouth, closes it again, blinks like he’s trying to collect himself.
When he finally speaks his voice is shaky in his throat, wobbling over even the
attempt at normal speech. “Well, if you’re going to insist.”
Shizuo’s chest unknots, tension easing enough to let him draw a full breath as
his hold at the other’s elbow loosens. “Good,” he says, and turns away at once,
before he can wait long enough for Izaya’s gaze to flicker down to his mouth,
before adrenaline and proximity talk him into a kiss before he’s had a chance
to really think through the situation. He takes a knee against the sidewalk,
wonders briefly if he’s going to need to insist Izaya brace himself against his
shoulders; but Izaya is reaching out as soon as Shizuo is steady, his hand
pressing hard at Shizuo’s shoulder as he takes an unsteady step forward.
There’s a moment of hesitation, or maybe it’s just Shizuo’s anticipation
drawing the moment breathlessly long; and then Izaya is leaning in against him
and letting his weight press close against the whole line of Shizuo’s back.
Shizuo’s breathing catches, his skin prickles warm with electricity, but he’s
moving on instinct and not logic, reaching back without looking to catch at
Izaya’s knees and pull the other closer in against him. Izaya wobbles, his
balance going precarious for a moment as he leans in closer, and then his hands
are catching at Shizuo’s shoulders, his face is pressing into Shizuo’s hair,
and Shizuo’s entire body is going taut, the blood in his veins illuminating
itself like fireworks at the warmth of Izaya’s breathing against his skin.
“Ready?” Shizuo asks, and moves before Izaya can answer, his adrenaline-rushed
actions coming out-of-sync with his words. Izaya hisses a startled inhale as
Shizuo stands, his grip tightening in instinctive panic at the shift in their
balance, but Shizuo’s walking almost as quickly as Izaya is pulling in closer
against him, moving down the sidewalk with a pace more strained on the hyper-
awareness of Izaya pressed against his shoulders than by the effort required to
bear an extra person’s weight on his back. Izaya’s hold slides, his fingers
easing on Shizuo’s shoulders like he’s afraid to touch him, like he thinks
Shizuo’s skin might be electrified, and Shizuo swallows hard and finds the
voice to say “Hold on better, you’re going to fall like that,” with so much
self-conscious strain on the words that he’s sure Izaya must be able to hear
it, must know how hard Shizuo’s heart is pounding from the press of Izaya’s
chest flush against his shoulders and the rush of the other’s breathing against
his hair. He can hear the failure of his attempt at casual conversation, can
feel the impossibility of the goal even as he takes a breath, but he doesn’t
know what else to say, can barely find speech at all from the thrum of self-
conscious awareness running like flame through the whole of his body. “Haven’t
you ever had a piggyback ride before?”
“No,” Izaya says, and pulls himself forward, bracing hard against the support
of Shizuo’s hands at the bend of his knees. For a moment his hips are pressed
close against the curve of Shizuo’s spine, his legs tense around the other’s
waist in a way that sparks life into the flare of Shizuo’s imagination too-
close to reality; then he shifts his hold, his hands sliding in and around so
he can loop both arms around Shizuo’s neck, and the smell of his skin hits
Shizuo with so much force he nearly stumbles, that he feels like the gravity of
the whole world is giving way to reorient itself around the rush of vanilla-
licorice that presses close against him with the soft of Izaya’s sleeves so
near to his face. When Izaya speaks again Shizuo can feel the words fall into
motion against his hair. “Who exactly would I have had one from?”
“Huh,” Shizuo offers, nonverbal concession to the point while he tries to pull
his focus back around to something other than the proximity of Izaya’s mouth to
the flutter of his pulse in his throat, something less loaded with heat than
the angle of the other’s legs around his waist. “I used to carry Kasuka back
from the park like this, sometimes.” His fingers slide, tighten against the
inside of Izaya’s too-skinny knee. “You weigh even less than he used to.”
“Or you’re stronger.” Izaya turns his head; Shizuo can feel the motion catch
and drag through his hair as strands tangle against the angle of Izaya’s nose
and stick to the damp of his lips. “God help us all if your strength is growing
along with all the rest of you.”
Shizuo can’t help the smile that pulls at his mouth, the expression carried on
the ticklish pleasure of Izaya’s lips so close against his skin and the gentle
teasing under the other’s voice. “Shut up,” he says, affection audible as
warmth over the words. “At least wait to complain until you’re not actively
benefitting from it.”
“Where would be the fun in that?” Izaya wants to know; but Shizuo doesn’t
answer, and Izaya doesn’t keep talking, just falls silent and nearly motionless
against Shizuo’s back. His arms are still looped around the other’s shoulders,
his hold easing into comfort instead of the half-panicked desperation of the
first few strides; Shizuo can feel the rhythm of Izaya’s breathing ruffling
against his hair, though he can’t judge if the pattern is telltale fast or not
when his own heart is racing inside his chest like the effort of carrying Izaya
home requires far more physical strain on his part than it does. The only
strain he’s feeling is the heat in his veins, the self-consciousness that is
clinging to the inside line of Izaya’s legs around him and Izaya’s fingers
weighting casual at his shoulders and Izaya’s heart thudding out a rhythm
against his spine; but that’s enough, that’s more than distracting, until he
reaches for something else, anything else to focus on in an already futile
attempt to hold back the heat trying to flush him hard against the inside of
his uniform slacks. It’s a doomed effort before he begins -- arousal has too
strong a hold of him already, and he thinks having Izaya so close against him
would be enough to bring him there anyway even if his imagination weren’t
already running wild over hazy-flushed fantasies and unformed desires -- but
after a block or two he can find some attention to backtrack over their
conversation and pick out the topic dropped by the brief distraction of Izaya’s
poorly-hidden injury.
“Is that really why?” he asks with no preamble, breaking the quiet between them
like it’s steel before the swing of his fist. Izaya tenses against his back,
his grip tightening like he’s coming awake after a drowse. “Why you made
friends with me in middle school. Because I was strong?”
There’s a brief pause, just enough for Izaya to process the question, and then:
“Of course,” he says, his voice strangely soft against Shizuo’s hair, like he’s
a little bit startled even in himself to hear the words spilling from his lips.
“I thought you knew.”
Shizuo thinks about the color behind Izaya’s eyes from across the schoolyard
after that first fight, thinks about the cut of the other’s smile as he stepped
casually into the destruction left behind by Shizuo’s too-ready temper and too-
strong muscles. He remembers bruises against a skinny wrist, the taunt of a
smirk from the edge of a windowsill, the purr of monster turned over on
appreciation until it’s not at insult at all.
“I probably should have guessed,” he says to the street in front of him. “You
really are an adrenaline junkie, aren’t you?”
Izaya huffs an exhale that is almost a laugh and tips his head forward to bump
against Shizuo’s; Shizuo can feel Izaya’s hair catching at his own, can hear
Izaya’s words coming hot just against the back of his ear. “And to think, it
only took you six years to figure it out.”
“You are such a brat,” Shizuo smiles. “I ought to drop you and let you limp
yourself home after all.”
“Probably,” Izaya agrees with unusual surrender to the suggestion. It makes
Shizuo laugh, affection too warm in his chest to stay silent as it should, and
Izaya falls quiet again, his forehead brushing against Shizuo’s hair as he lets
the sound of his breathing take the place of words. Shizuo lets the silence
stretch for a moment, lets peace fall over them as memory spirals wide, landing
on other details, now: Izaya laughing in his arms in the summertime heat of the
park, Izaya yelping not-quite protest as Shizuo toppled him over onto the wet
floor of the bathroom. Izaya’s smile, Izaya’s touch, the focus of those scarlet
eyes across a temporary battlefield, across a classroom, across a kotatsu,
watching everything Shizuo is and seeing everything he could be and accepting
all of it, seeking out those corners of Shizuo’s psyche that even he cringes
away from, that he can’t stand to look at in the bright of day without Izaya
there to show him how.
Shizuo takes a breath, feels the strain of it knot his throat on the threat of
almost-tears he can’t hope to restrain. He lets them linger instead, lets them
color his voice to the edge of gruffness as he ducks his head in a needless
attempt to cover the flush cresting across his cheeks. “No one’s ever liked
that about me before.”
Shizuo isn’t sure the words come out right. He feels them stick and catch on
emotion, hears them go strained and odd in his throat; he wonders if Izaya
knows he’s including himself in that no one, if Izaya knows how much he used to
hate the bruises painting the face staring back at him in the mirror. He
doesn’t try to clarify, and Izaya doesn’t ask; he just stays quiet for a long,
long moment, so long Shizuo wonders if he’ll speak at all for the rest of the
walk back to his home. But then, finally: “I do,” almost a whisper, shaped like
a secret against Shizuo’s hair, and Shizuo’s chest eases, the impossible words
to frame his admission dissolving into unimportance with the breathless
gratitude that hits him with Izaya’s statement.
It should be no surprise, by now, that Izaya’s acceptance means more to Shizuo
than his own.
***** Having *****
Shizuo leaves Izaya at his front door. He’d like to follow the other into the
dim of the unilluminated hallway, would like to carry him up the stairs and
leave him in bed with a dose of ibuprofen and ice against his hip and a promise
to stay off his feet until the swelling goes down; but Shizuo knows such a
promise would be hard-won at best and completely ignored at worst, and he
doesn’t have any reasonable response to Izaya’s request that he be left alone
to navigate the quiet of his house so as not to disturb his sisters. “Make sure
to ice the bruise,” Shizuo had said, murmuring the words in the softest
undertone he could manage; and Izaya had tipped his head into a smile, and
huffed a laugh, and said, “Yes, senpai,” with a drawl on the words that left
Shizuo too flustered-warm to even attempt a coherent response. Izaya had still
been smiling when he turned away to let himself into the house, had glanced
back after limping inside into the dark hallway; Shizuo had caught a glimpse of
dark eyes, the flash of a smile, and Izaya’s fingers fluttering through a
silent goodbye before he eased the door shut between them. Shizuo stayed at the
front pathway for a moment, his heart pounding out a rhythm all its own in his
chest; and then he turned away, and strode back out to the main street, and
made his way back through the night to his own home.
No one is awake when he arrives. It’s only reasonable; the hours at the bar run
late enough that Shizuo usually comes home to a silent house, with only the
light in the entryway left on to greet him when he lets himself in past the
front door. It’s a usual occurrence, nothing worth noting even on a normal
night, and tonight Shizuo is more grateful for it than otherwise. With no one
awake to greet him there is no need for late-night small talk, no risk of
getting pulled into a conversation that will keep him from doing what he wants
to do, and what he does, which is toe off his shoes in the entryway, and turn
the light off behind him, and make directly for the stairs running up to the
privacy of his bedroom.
He doesn’t turn the lights on. It’s better in the dark, he thinks, easier to
call up the present-tense clarity of memories of an hour ago, of Izaya’s arms
around his neck, Izaya’s lips ghosting against his hair, Izaya’s legs caught
around his waist. Shizuo pushes the door shut behind him, turns the lock to
guarantee himself the solitude the lateness of the hour already suggests, and
then he’s reaching for the front of his slacks, unfastening the button of the
fabric even as he stumbles across the dark of his room to sprawl heavy over the
bed as he pushes his clothes free of his hips. He’s half-hard before he reaches
for himself, his body catching on the heat that has gripped him since Izaya’s
fingers closed at his shoulder and Izaya’s body pressed against his back. It’s
too much, the memory and the immediacy both together in his mind, and Shizuo
has to angle an arm over his face, has to cover even his shut eyes with the
weight of his sleeve to immerse himself entirely in the picture-perfect details
of the way Izaya felt pressing flush against him.
His clothes still smell like Izaya. It’s everywhere, clinging to Shizuo’s skin,
tangled into the strands of his hair, weighting the fabric of his collar.
Shizuo can’t find a source, can’t figure out an angle to press his nose against
his sleeve so he can inhale Izaya into his lungs; but it’s there anyway, a haze
around him like a shimmer of heat in the air, lingering at the back of his
tongue when he breathes and firing his blood to flame as he closes his grip
tight around himself and strokes up. It’s like Izaya’s there with him still,
like Izaya’s in the room, in the dark past Shizuo’s shut eyes and the weight of
his arm, like his fingers might catch Shizuo’s wrist and still the rhythm of
his hand at any time. Shizuo can imagine it clearly, can almost feel the drag
of Izaya’s fingertips at his skin, and when he groans it comes out as “Izaya,”
his voice wrapping itself close around the edges of the other’s name. He can
imagine the flash of a smile, can almost hear the huff of a caught-back laugh,
and in his imagination the bed shifts, the sheets tugs under the weight of
Shizuo’s body as Izaya climbs to straddle the angle of his knees. Shizuo knows,
now, how Izaya’s legs would feel spread open around him, knows how featherlight
Izaya’s weight would be pressing against his thighs, and there’s a groan stuck
in the back of his throat, heat trying to wrest itself free of his control as
the Izaya in his mind slides up over his body and leans in over him, all dark
hair and moonlit skin and the soft drag of his mouth on that smile as much a
taunt as is it encouragement. Shizuo’s body is hot, is straining towards the
contact that exists only in his mind behind the licorice haze clinging to the
sleeve of his shirt; but behind his shut eyes Izaya is bracing a hand on his
chest, Izaya is pinning him down one-handed as he slides himself back towards
the slick drag of Shizuo’s grip on himself. The weight of Izaya’s touch
wouldn’t be enough to hold Shizuo in place -- even in imagination, Shizuo knows
he could shake it off as if it weren’t there at all -- but his breathing is
catching anyway, his lungs straining for air as he imagines Izaya sliding down
onto him, as his imagination arches the other’s spine and tips his head back
into an angle of unmistakeable heat. Shizuo can picture Izaya clear in his
head, can call up with perfect clarity the way his expression would go slack on
sensation, the way his lashes would flutter heavy against his cheeks, and his
hand is moving faster, now, urging the heat under his skin to greater heights
with every rushed drag of his fingers.
It’s a familiar fantasy. This isn’t the first time Shizuo has called up the
lines of Izaya’s body over him, not the first time he’s tightened his fingers
around the sharp edges of illusory hips and let the thud of his heartbeat in
his ears shape into the mirage of Izaya’s voice breaking into moans or
straining over Shizuo’s name. But it’s clearer this time, bright at the edges
like it’s more real, like it’s close enough to taste, and Shizuo’s skin still
remembers the weight of Izaya against him and the gust of Izaya’s breathing
against the back of his neck and he’s gasping for air against the cuff of his
shirt, filling his lungs with the bitter bite of spice at the back of his
tongue as his hand speeds over his cock. He wants Izaya’s hands in his hair,
wants Izaya’s legs around his hips, wants to pin Izaya down to the sheets and
fit against the heat of his body, wants to breathe in the smell of sweat-warm
skin while Izaya is shuddering into pleasure underneath him. He wants it all,
wants Izaya’s mouth against his and Izaya’s throat working over a moan as
Shizuo kisses against his shoulder, wants his hands pressing against every
sharp angle of the other’s body and wants to know what it feels like to topple
into orgasm with the taste of Izaya’s skin hot against his tongue. In his head
he can see Izaya’s smile, can hear Izaya’s laugh; and then memory cuts in front
of fantasy, reminds him of “I do” murmured like a secret against his ear, and
Shizuo gasps a breath and comes in a rush, the strain taut along his body
collapsing to sudden relief under the waves of pleasure that crash over his
awareness. For a moment it doesn’t matter where he is, doesn’t matter that he’s
alone with only the fading afterimage of Izaya’s body pressed close against his
for company; the pleasure is enough, it’s enough to have the simple comfort of
physical satisfaction rippling out into his veins to soothe the strain at his
shoulders and the memory of Izaya’s smile behind his eyes to ease the
everpresent ache of unfulfilled desire in his chest. Izaya’s not here with him,
and in a moment he’ll have to move his arm and work through cleaning himself up
from the mess he’s made of his uniform; but for a moment Shizuo just stays
where he is, fills his lungs with warm air from the press of his sleeve over
his face and lets the comfort of memory spread out to fill the darkest shadows
of his mind.
Izaya’s smile is all he’s really wanted since he was in middle school, and
that, at least, he knows he can have.
***** Shine *****
It’s three weeks to Christmas when Shizuo gets called into the manager’s
office.
It comes at the end of a shift, an offhand order of “Come in for a minute,
Heiwajima-kun,” so casually that even the unprecedented invitation doesn’t
tense Shizuo’s shoulders with any but minor worry. He’s been doing better in
recent weeks, he’s sure of it; his drinks appear to be reasonably palatable to
all but the most regular of customers, and it’s been almost a month since he
lost his temper badly enough to shatter a glass in a too-strong hold. The
manager has been understanding of his occasional bursts of irritation and the
fallout from them, and on all of the incidents the customer has paled and
balked from any further needling, which Shizuo had considered to be more of a
benefit than otherwise. He hasn’t done anything wrong recently, as far as he
knows; but he can’t think of any other reason to be called in, and when he
steps through the doorway it’s with some unformed suspicion of bad news, like
he’s bracing himself preemptively for conflict and the ensuing surge of anger
it is likely to bring with it. He has his hands relaxed at his sides, is
breathing deliberately calmly as he steps through the door; but the manager
barely even glances up, just pushes a piece of paper across the desk towards
him.
“Congrats,” he says, reaching out for his phone and the flash of a notification
light Shizuo can see in the top corner. “The shifts worked out, I was able to
approve your request.”
Shizuo blinks. “What?”
“Your request.” The manager taps out of his phone and looks up to meet Shizuo’s
uncomprehending gaze. “For Christmas.” He pushes the paper farther across the
desk. “You wanted time off that day, didn’t you?”
Shizuo reaches out for the sheet of paper and lifts it to read over the scrawl
of text across the form. It’s his handwriting over the pre-printed lines of the
time off request; he even remembers filling it out some months ago, with the
vague hope that requesting with sufficient notice would give him enough of an
advantage to counteract his lack of seniority. He had forgotten about it, had
assumed the lack of response meant a refusal and had resigned himself to
working through the day on his usual time-consuming schedule; but there’s
“Approved” written across the bottom of the page, now, promising him the free
time he had already assumed was lost.
“Not many requests this year,” the manager says, looking back at his phone.
“You’re lucky, usually everyone wants to take the night off for a girlfriend or
a mixer. Guess you’re the only one with anyone to take out.”
“Ah,” Shizuo says. “Yeah.”
“That’s all,” the manager says, waving his hand in clear dismissal without
looking up. “See you tomorrow.”
“Right,” Shizuo says, “Goodnight,” and he’s turning for the door, still staring
at the sheet of paper in his hand promising him the freedom of an evening, the
expanse of hours on Christmas to fill as he sees fit, to spend at his own
discretion instead of as required by his job. It’s a heady thought all on its
own, would be even without the hope thrumming itself to electricity along his
spine; as it is he feels shaky in himself, like he’s likely to lose his balance
if he’s not careful with his footsteps. He folds the paper into quarters,
slides it carefully into the inside pocket of his vest like it’s some precious
artifact; and then he pulls his phone out and has it ringing against his ear by
the time he steps out of the back door of the bar and into the street.
It’s dark outside. He had forgotten the hour, hadn’t thought to check the time
before he called; he hadn’t been thinking of anything at all, truthfully,
except for the nervous energy radiating into his body that demands that he act
now, quickly, that he seize the possibility of this unexpected opportunity
before it disintegrates. He thinks of pulling the phone away, of hanging up and
sending a less disruptive text message instead; but then there’s a click on the
other end of the line, and Izaya’s voice: “Shizuo?” startled into softness
until Shizuo barely recognizes it.
Shizuo’s chest constricts, tensing against the rush of adrenaline to his heart
as it always does when he first hears Izaya’s voice after some time apart.
“Izaya,” he says, and the name is warm on his tongue, spilling to affection too
quickly for him to call back even if he wanted. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Izaya still sounds a little startled, like he’s adrift in this
conversation as he almost never is in any of the situations Shizuo has seen him
in. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Shizuo laughs, happiness too bright in his throat to hold itself to silence.
“It’s past midnight,” he says. “I just got out. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
“Who said I wasn’t?” Izaya shoots back. “You could have woken me up, it’s
thoughtless calling this late, you know.”
“I didn’t.” Shizuo can’t stop smiling; he’s sure it must be audible on his
tone, must be clear even past the rough edge he tries to put on his voice for
the sake of banter. “Don’t pick a fight.”
“I hear and obey,” Izaya says, but the words come out lilting on amusement,
riding the edge of an unvoiced laugh.
“Brat,” Shizuo says. “What are you doing for Christmas?”
There’s a tiny, breathless pause. It’s hardly there at all; Shizuo wouldn’t
notice it if he weren’t listening for it, if his heart weren’t pounding so hard
on hope and excitement that he can count every second twice over as it ticks
past. Then: “I don’t know yet,” Izaya tells him with the faintest hint of
strain under his voice, like he’s uncertain of his words or maybe like he’s
holding back a smile. “Why does it matter to you?”
Shizuo rolls his eyes unseen in the dark of the night. “You are such a pain.”
His heart is pounding, his skin flushing hot, but the words are falling fast
from his lips, adrenaline pushing him to impulsivity of speech instead of
action for once. “I just found out I have the evening off. Are you going to
come over?”
It’s not quite what he had intended to say. Come out with me, was what his
racing mind had suggested, are you free for a Christmas date? what his more
reckless heart had insisted upon. But between the pressure of date threatening
his tongue and the careful construct offered by rationality his mouth had moved
without waiting for input, turning the request into more of a demand than the
plea Shizuo had intended. He flinches at the harsh edge of the words, tries to
backtrack himself to a better position, but Izaya’s answering before Shizuo has
the chance to rephrase.
“It’s still three weeks away,” Izaya says. “I’m sure you can pick yourself up a
girlfriend before then if you try real hard.”
Shizuo’s growl spills from the center of his chest, forming from the knot of
tension that clutches his heart like a vice at the sound of Izaya’s voice, at
the thought of Izaya’s smile, at the memory of the dark weight of Izaya’s
lashes. It’s loneliness, partially, it’s made from too many quiet weeks alone
and too many late-night fantasies that run ragged over much-revisited memories;
but mostly it’s frustration, impatience flaring to sound in Shizuo’s chest at
Izaya’s persistence in turning away from reality, at his determined refusal to
see Shizuo’s unsubtle interest in him rather than in some invented romance. “I
don’t want to spend Christmas with a girlfriend,” Shizuo hisses, hearing
implied honesty like an echo: I want to spend Christmas withyou. “Are you going
to come over?”
“No,” Izaya says immediately.
Shizuo’s stomach drops. He had just been hoping, he thought, he hadn’t been
counting on Izaya being available to spend the day with him; it’s not like he
hasn’t been reminded in previous years that his best friend might have
something better to do than spend the holiday in his company, even if the
threat has never materialized to anything more sincere than bright-eyed
teasing. But Izaya had said he didn’t have plans already, and Shizuo had been
counting on that as if on solid ground under his feet, and in the first moment
of loss all he can do is take a sharp breath of ice-cold air, is feel
expectation lurch sideways and away from him, and then:
“I’ll meet you downtown,” Izaya says, reinstating all Shizuo’s balance so
suddenly it blows the air from his lungs in a rush. “When do you get done with
work that day?”
Shizuo has to try twice before he can find air to speak clearly. “Three.”
“Fine.” Izaya purrs over the word, drawing it longer and warmer than such a
brief sound has any right to be. “I’ll see you on Christmas, Shizuo.”
Shizuo is smiling again, his cheeks flushed warm with pleasure as much at the
sound of his name in Izaya’s voice as at the promise of happiness to come on
Christmas afternoon. “Good,” he says. He reaches for something else to say,
anything to extend the conversation a moment longer, and his attention lights
on the dark of the street in front of him and the sparkle of the stars
overhead. “Sorry for calling so late.”
“It’s fine,” Izaya tells him. “I wasn’t asleep.”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “I knew you weren’t. Are you even at home?”
Izaya hums noncommittally. “Ask me again in five minutes.”
“Oh my god,” Shizuo groans, but he’s laughing, he can’t hold to even the show
of irritation when he’s smiling as wide as he is. “Go the fuck to bed, Izaya.”
“I’m going,” Izaya says. “Bye.”
Shizuo laughs again, happiness pressing too close against the inside of his
chest to allow for anything else. “‘Night,” he says, and pulls the phone away
from his ear fast, before he can give in to the temptation to draw the
conversation out any longer. It’s late, after all, and even if Shizuo knows
Izaya won’t go to class in the morning he doesn’t want to give the other any
more excuses to ditch than he already has. His phone fits heavy in his pocket,
his shoulders relax under the line of his vest, and when Shizuo looks up at the
sky overhead he can just see the glow of the moon rising over the edge of the
city’s horizon.
The street shines like silver in the moonlight.
***** Restraint *****
Shizuo gets off work late.
It’s not from forgetfulness. He’s been thinking about his plans with Izaya
since before he left the house for his morning shift at the bar, has been so
jittery with excitement and distraction all day that he’s been checking the
clock at five-minute intervals and ruined three drinks by losing track of where
he was in the recipe. But the bar owner showed up three minutes before the end
of Shizuo’s shift, and even Shizuo’s best efforts to extricate himself with
steadily waning politeness didn’t let him free until he finally blurted, “I
have someone waiting for me,” barely thinking to append “Sorry” as an
attachment to the blunt aggression of the statement. That had stalled the
conversation where it was, had set him loose to make his way to the door, and
even the laughing call of “Enjoy your date!” hadn’t been enough to more than
flush his cheeks with a tinge of embarrassment as he shoved the door open and
escaped to the wintery cool of the street outside. It’s not like he hasn’t
thought the word himself anyway, not like he hasn’t been repeating it over and
over inside the privacy of his own head like he’s nursing a flame between the
cupped angle of his palms; he’s still thinking about it as he lifts his head to
scan the street, to skip over the unfamiliar faces of strangers like they’re
not even there as he looks for Izaya. It’s a date, his thoughts murmur, you’re
on a date, you’re taking him on-- and then there’s a gust of wind, and a ruffle
of movement so familiar Shizuo’s chest is tightening even as he turns to look,
and there’s Izaya, balancing on the edge of a chest-high chainlink fence and
grinning so bright Shizuo can see it even across the width of the street.
Shizuo’s breath rushes out of him, his mouth tugs into a helpless curve of
warmth, and he barely glances at the quiet street before he’s stepping out onto
the pavement to cut straight across the distance between them.
“Hi there,” Izaya says, still clinging to that smile as Shizuo approaches. His
eyes are brighter than Shizuo remembers, sparkling with color as if they’ve
captured the illumination of the Christmas lights strung in the windows of the
storefronts around them. “You’re late, you know.”
“I know.” Shizuo doesn’t look away from Izaya’s smile. He’s not sure he could
if he tried. “I got caught in a conversation with the owner and couldn’t get
away.”
“How rude of him.” Shizuo steps in closer even though he doesn’t need to; he
wants to touch Izaya’s hip, wants to curl his arm around Izaya’s waist, wants
to press his nose against the soft lining of the other’s coat and never let go.
He reaches for the fence instead, curls his fingers tight against the metal
links; it’s cold to the touch but at least it keeps his hand occupied. Izaya’s
still watching him, angling his gaze sideways to slip under the weight of his
lashes. “You should have told him you had a date.”
Shizuo’s skin flushes hot, his whole body responding immediately to the echo of
his own thoughts in Izaya’s voice; but when he looks up Izaya is just watching
him, his expression composed and focused like he’s waiting for Shizuo’s
reaction to guide his own. Shizuo thinks about seizing the opportunity, about
saying I did just to see if he can rattle away some of that considering calm
behind Izaya’s eyes; and then he lets the possibility go and says “I did tell
him I was meeting someone” without volunteering anything further. “You could
have come inside, you know, you would have been warmer.”
“I’m fine,” Izaya says lightly. “There’s this amazing invention called a jacket
that is intended to keep people warm even when it’s cold out. It’s a novel
thing, you should try it sometimes.”
“I can’t believe you’re lecturing me on this,” Shizuo says, trying and mostly
failing to hold back the tug of a smile at his mouth as he looks up at Izaya
perched at the edge of the fence. “Are you going to get down, or should I leave
you there to preen and go into town myself?”
Izaya’s eyelashes dip, his mouth drags into a smile at the corner. “You told
your boss you had a date,” he says, even though Shizuo hasn’t said that word
aloud all day, as if Izaya can hear the echo of Shizuo’s thoughts without even
struggling for it. “I’d hate to make you a liar.” He leans forward off the edge
of the fence and reaches out to catch his fingers at Shizuo’s shoulder, and
Shizuo stretches a hand up in immediate, reflexive response, his fingers
finding their way to Izaya’s waist like they were meant to settle there. Izaya
slides forward at Shizuo’s touch, trusting his weight to the other instead of
to the support of the fence without a moment of hesitation, and for just a
breath Shizuo’s nose is pressed close against the front of Izaya’s jacket and
he can breathe in a lungful of winter-chill air inches away from the other’s
clothes. He wants to lift his other hand, wants to catch Izaya in his arms and
hold him as close as they are now; but Izaya’s moving already, letting himself
slide down to the ground and pulling away before Shizuo can manage to tighten
his hold on the other’s waist to keep him where he is. Shizuo’s fingers close
on air instead of coat, his hands left empty of anything except winter chill,
and Izaya is moving away down the sidewalk, drawling “So, Shizuo,” without even
looking back while Shizuo has to jog to catch him up. “Where shall we go for
Christmas?”
Shizuo blinks. He hadn’t thought about the day beyond the simple pleasure of
indulging in Izaya’s company for an evening; the loss only strikes him now,
when it’s too late to claim anything but lack of foresight. “I don’t know,” he
says, pushing a hand roughly through his hair as his cheeks start to flush with
self-consciousness. “What do you feel like doing?”
“Hmm.” Izaya lifts his chin to look up at the sky; his gaze flickers to skim
over Shizuo’s expression for just a moment, his mouth tightening on the start
of a smile. “Karaoke’s popular, I understand.”
Shizuo makes a face. “You’d spend the whole time making fun of my taste in
music.”
Izaya’s mouth twists on a grin. “If you had better taste in music I wouldn’t
have to.” When he turns his head it’s to smile at Shizuo, the cut of his smile
wholly undone by the soft behind the color of his eyes; his cheeks are flushed
with cold and faintly pink against the chill in the air, his mouth darkened by
the wind to a deeper red than usual. Shizuo’s attention flickers down, his gaze
skimming over the curve of Izaya’s mouth; and Izaya turns away, dropping his
chin and looking down so his expression is hidden by the fall of his hair.
“You’re probably right, though,” he says. “It’ll be impossible to get a room
for just two people without any kind of a reservation.”
“We could get something to eat,” Shizuo offers without looking away from what
little he can make out of Izaya’s face. “I think Russia Sushi is open.”
“Russia Sushi is always open,” Izaya agrees. “I’m not sure that they actually
serve food, but they’re always open, technically.”
“The more expensive stuff isn’t bad,” Shizuo points out, his heart pounding
over date, date, date like repetition will make reality out of his hopes. His
feet are carrying him closer to Izaya, cutting down the distance between their
bodies as he moves, but Izaya’s not veering away, he’s close enough that Shizuo
could reach out and drop an arm around his shoulders, could curl his fingers
into a gentle hold around the angle of the other’s wrist. He looks down at
Izaya’s sleeve, at the angle of his fingers relaxed against his hip, and his
heart pounds on temptation he knows he won’t capitulate to but can’t help
thinking about. “I just got my paycheck for the last couple weeks,” he says,
his sleeve catching against the cuff of Izaya’s as their arms swing out-of-time
with each other, as his fingers weight against the other’s sleeve. “I could--”
and then his hand bumps Izaya’s, his knuckles grazing what feels like ice, and
all his tight-wound adrenaline snaps into concern so abruptly it leaves him no
time for subtlety.
“Fuck, your hands are freezing,” is what he says, and what he’s doing is
grabbing at Izaya’s wrist with an impulse born too immediately of concern for
him to hold back. Izaya stops dead on the sidewalk, his forward motion wholly
stalled as Shizuo’s hand closes on his, but Shizuo’s not moving either; his
feet stopped for him at the same time his fingers bumped Izaya’s, at the same
time he felt the painful chill radiating from the other’s skin. “How long were
you waiting for me outside?”
“Not long,” Izaya says, but Shizuo doesn’t even look at his face; he can feel
the lie in the cold weighting the angle of Izaya’s fingers in his.
“Why didn’t you just come inside?” he asks, even though he knows Izaya too well
for the question to be anything but rhetorical. “I know the bouncer lets you in
every time you come by, you could have warmed up while I was finishing.”
“I had only just gotten there.” Izaya’s hand is slack in Shizuo’s; he’s not
moving to draw it away, not even tugging at the pressure even as Shizuo weights
his thumb against Izaya’s palm and pushes hard in an attempt to win some
fraction of warmth from the wind-chilled skin. “I’ve just been out and about
all afternoon, I had other things to do.”
Shizuo looks up. Izaya’s staring at him, his eyes dark and fixed on Shizuo’s
face; it’s like he hasn’t even noticed the pressure of Shizuo’s hold on his
hand, like he’s utterly separate from the electricity running through Shizuo’s
entire body from that point of contact. “I wish you wouldn’t get into trouble
without me.”
“Wish all you want,” Izaya says. “If you hate it that much, you’re welcome to
find a new best friend.”
“I’m not--” Shizuo starts, and then he sees Izaya’s mouth shift, sees his lips
trembling for a moment before he tenses them into the beginnings of a frown,
and he closes his mouth on his sentence unspoken while he eases back from the
dare to aggression Izaya’s words offered. When he speaks again it’s softer,
gentler, as sincere as he can make his voice without startling Izaya away like
some skittish cat. “I just worry about you.”
“You do.” Izaya twists his hand hard in Shizuo’s hold, offering sudden
resistance to the other’s grip in place of the slack surrender he was giving
before; Shizuo looks down, and lets his hold go, and Izaya pulls his hand away
to slide his wind-chilled fingers into his pocket instead of Shizuo’s grasp.
Shizuo’s skin prickles with lost electricity. “Maybe that’s why I do it.”
Izaya’s smiling when Shizuo looks up at him, his mouth dragging at the corner
into near-laughter; the tremor at his mouth is gone, the darkness in his eyes
has hardened to a wall, and there’s no trace of sincerity anywhere in his
expression or his tone.
Shizuo frowns, frustrated more with the sense of a missed opportunity than by
the mockery on Izaya’s words. “Don’t be a brat.”
Izaya laughs. “Don’t be silly, Shizuo,” he says, turning to pace backwards down
the sidewalk without looking away from Shizuo’s face. “You know you love that
about me.”
I do, Shizuo’s heart thrums in his chest. I love everything about you. But
Izaya’s still grinning at him, and there’s no space for sincerity behind the
bright of his gaze, and so Shizuo just rolls his eyes and says “You’re the
worst” with affection urging the corner of his mouth towards a smile instead of
a scowl. “I can’t believe I’m friends with you.”
“I can’t either,” Izaya smiles. “Why would you choose me when you have so many
other options available to you?”
Shizuo looks at the dark of Izaya’s hair tangling in the wind, at the bright
color behind the weight of his lashes, at the heartstopping almost-fall of his
footsteps against the sidewalk. He’s close enough to touch, Shizuo thinks,
close enough that Shizuo could reach out and grab at his elbow, or the collar
of his coat, or the curve of his waist, could brace him in place and step in
against him and press his mouth against the sharp dip of Izaya’s teasing smile
the way he’s dreamt of doing for years.
“I must be a masochist,” Shizuo says, and pushes his hands into his pockets
instead.
***** Graduate *****
Shizuo leaves the hall as soon as Izaya has graduated.
He doesn’t go far. He’s been looking forward to today for months; he’s not
about to return home without even saying anything to the other. But he feels
out-of-place in the ceremony hall, with younger siblings and parents to look
askance at his bartender uniform and his bleached-blond hair, and he’s
thrumming so warm with adrenaline that staying still for the whole of the
ceremony is all but an impossibility. He ducks out in the gap between one
student and the next, escaping the enclosure of the hall for the cool breeze in
the courtyard, and paces out the worst of the aching happiness in his chest in
a few idle loops around the empty space. It takes a few minutes, passes some of
the time left for the remainder of the ceremony, and then he makes for the
front gates of the school to lean against the familiar brick columns and wait
for Izaya to find him. There’s no chance he’ll be missed -- he’s easy to spot,
he knows, and Izaya’s never had any problems finding Shizuo when he’s looking
for him -- and over the border of the school grounds Shizuo doesn’t need to
feel guilty about pulling a cigarette from the box in his pocket and catching a
flame to glow bright at the paper. The first inhale burns in his throat, coats
the back of his tongue with the bitter taste of nicotine he’s only just
becoming familiar with; and it does what the walk didn’t, and soothes away the
edge of the nervous excitement he’s been feeling since this morning. With the
cigarette in his fingers and the wall at his back Shizuo can tip his head back,
can look up at the sky, and can let himself relax into the comfortable pride of
the moment and the relief that comes with Izaya’s official completion of high
school. It’s been a longer year than Shizuo expected, the time stretching slow
with Izaya’s relative absence; but it’s over, now, Izaya has a diploma to match
the one hanging on Shizuo’s bedroom wall, and Shizuo lets himself slide into a
daydream of early lunches together, of hours spent in Izaya’s company in the
afternoon hours before Shizuo’s shifts or even the moonlit ones after, of late-
night meetings and easy laughter and--
“Hey there.” Izaya’s smiling when Shizuo turns his head to look back at him,
his stride easy and fluid like he’s shed some weight in exchange for the
cylinder of the diploma in his hand. “Didn’t you have the patience to wait
through the whole ceremony?”
“I saw you graduate,” Shizuo tells him, starting to smile as he takes a last
drag from his cigarette and reaches to find the envelope in his pocket to catch
the stub of it. Izaya comes close and turns to lean against the wall next to
the other while Shizuo pockets the envelope again. “I just didn’t want to sit
through the rest of your class. I knew you’d find me afterwards.”
“You just wanted to have a cigarette.” Izaya reaches out to press his fingers
against Shizuo’s vest, hard enough that Shizuo can feel the envelope inside
crinkle to the force. When he glances up his mouth is curving on amusement, his
eyes are bright with laughter. “Are you already such a slave to addiction?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, reaching out to push Izaya’s touch away with
enough care that the aggression of the action is completely undermined even
before his smile breaks wide across his face. “I didn’t want to be a damper on
the family celebrations for the other students.”
Izaya’s forehead creases, his smile flickering away as he draws it into a
deliberate frown. “That is true,” he allows, sounding thoughtful in a way that
Shizuo might actually believe if he didn’t know Izaya as well as he does. “I
guess the parents wouldn’t really want a pervert there at their child’s
graduation.”
Shizuo’s inhale goes sideways on sheer shock. “What?” he blurts, coughing
himself back into sufficient air to fill his lungs as he gapes at Izaya. “Are
you talking about me?”
“Obviously.” Izaya turns away from Shizuo’s stare, leaning back against the
wall behind him so he can tip his head up to gaze at the bright of the sky.
Shizuo can see the dark of his lashes shift as he blinks, as his eyes cut
sideways for a moment of attention in spite of the apparent unconcern of his
position. “Who else would I be referring to?”
Shizuo’s spine prickles into completely unwarranted self-consciousness. Izaya
is just teasing him, he thinks, there’s no way he can know about the nearly-
nightly fantasies Shizuo’s imagination has formed around his best friend,
there’s no way he can know how hot Shizuo’s blood goes just at the curving line
Izaya’s throat makes with his head angled back like it is. He still feels the
weight of his own knowledge pressing against his chest, still has to catch an
inhale and force his words steady before he can attempt denial.
“I’m not a pervert,” he growls. “Why would you--”
“Of course you are,” Izaya cuts him off. He’s looking at Shizuo sideways again,
his lashes dipping down to half-shadow the bright of his eyes. There’s the
twitch of movement at the corner of his mouth. “You corrupted a pure young boy
into god only knows what kind of debauchery and sin.”
Shizuo very nearly laughs in Izaya’s face. As it is he gets his mouth closed on
the burst of disbelief before it breaks free, but he can still feel the tug of
tension at the corner of his mouth as he tries to fight back amusement. “Sorry,
who?”
“Seducing a minor is a terrible thing, Shizuo,” Izaya continues without looking
away. He’s starting to smile in truth, now, the curve of his mouth threatening
the edge of a grin as he holds Shizuo’s gaze. “Are you really that into high
schoolers?”
“You are four months younger than me,” Shizuo says, because it seems safer to
focus on that part of the conversation rather than trying to pin down what
exactly in their interactions Izaya considers seduction so Shizuo can do more
of it. “And we’re friends, I’m not seducing you into anything.” Shizuo’s heart
is pounding, his hands trembling with nervous adrenaline; he can feel his skin
glowing warm like the springtime sunlight is far warmer than it is in fact,
like his skin is illuminating itself on the force of the energy surging to heat
in him. “If anything it’s the other way around.”
Izaya turns his head, his smile melting into wide-eyed shock. “Have I been
seducing you, Shizuo?” His chin dips down, his lashes flutter; for a moment
Shizuo can’t find air to fill his lungs. “You’ll have to let me know next time
so I can do a better job of it.”
Shizuo’s entire body flares into radiant heat for a moment. Partially it’s from
the echo of his own thoughts in Izaya’s voice, partially from the too-clear
image that breaks into his thoughts at the purr of Izaya’s words; but mostly
it’s the certainty, the absolute self-awareness that he’s flirting with me, the
thought too clearly parsed for even the usual ambiguity of Izaya’s actions to
cover it up.
“That’s not what I--” meant, Shizuo intends to say, but the lie sticks on his
tongue, refuses to fall easily when his whole body is aching with all the want
Izaya has been drawing out of him for all the years they’ve known each other.
He closes his mouth instead and frowns at the dark of Izaya’s focused stare, at
the curve of laughter threatening the corner of the other’s mouth. “You’re the
one who corrupts me.”
“Is that the best defense you can come up with?” Izaya asks from under the
shadow of his lashes. “You should really take responsibility for the terrible
effect you’ve had on me all these years.”
“I’ve been a great influence on you,” Shizuo says, and he’s reaching out to
push at Izaya’s shoulder, to frame the need for physical contact with the
excuse of aggression he’s sure Izaya can see through as well as he can. “God
only knows what trouble you’d get yourself into alone.”
Izaya sighs heavily. “I’ve been surrounded by the activities of delinquents for
years.” His tone is still teasing, swinging through sing-songy lilting that
makes Shizo want to laugh, that makes Shizuo want to stop the sound at the
other’s lips with the weight of his mouth. Shizuo reaches for Izaya’s shoulder
again, trying for a grab this time instead of a shove, and Izaya doges easily,
unfolding from the wall and backing away towards the school gate instead as his
smile breaks free into a bright-edged grin. “Drawn into gang warfare and now
tangled up with the yakuza, really, it’s a miracle I graduated at all.”
“It really is.” Shizuo stretches out, stepping in closer as he goes; his hand
comes out, reaching for a weight at the shadowed dark of Izaya’s hair, and
Izaya takes a step sideways to dodge the contact with the same skittish
reaction Shizuo has seen over and over again, that Shizuo could predict if he
tried, that Shizuo has predicted, because he has his other arm out to catch and
stall Izaya’s motion half-formed. Izaya’s head turns, his expression flickering
into shock at the unexpected contact, and in his moment of hesitation Shizuo is
catching his fingers into Izaya’s hair and pulling the other in close against
the support of his body.
“You are such a brat,” Shizuo says, except the words go soft in the back of his
throat like they’re melting to tangle around his tongue the same way Izaya’s
hair is catching at his fingertips. Izaya’s pressed close against him, closer
Shizuo thinks than he’s ever been before; and then Shizuo takes a breath and
Izaya fills his lungs, the spicy bite of the other’s scent clinging like
licorice at the back of his tongue and chasing away even the lingering taste of
cigarettes from his lips. He turns his head against Izaya’s hair, his fingers
sliding down to stroke through the soft weight of strands, and then his arm is
fitting around Izaya’s shoulders like it was meant to be there, his hold
curling close around the span of the other’s body to keep him right where he
is. Shizuo’s whole body prickles with self-consciousness, with hyper-awareness
of Izaya’s hair, Izaya’s skin, Izaya’s too-thin shoulders pressing close
against him; and then he moves, instinct stepping in to take the place of
thought and telling him to lift his other arm, to catch Izaya to stillness in
his hold. Izaya takes a sudden breath, hissing shock against the front of
Shizuo’s shirt, but Shizuo doesn’t ease his hold, doesn’t let go of the rhythm
of Izaya’s heart beating against his.
“I’m proud of you,” Shizuo says, feeling dizzy, feeling drunk, like the whole
world has fallen away to leave justthis tiny square of pavement under his feet
for the two of them to press together. Izaya is very still in his arms.
“Congratulations on your graduation, Izaya.”
Izaya doesn’t move for a long moment. Shizuo can hear the rush of his breathing
coming hard at the front of Shizuo’s shirt, like Izaya’s struggling for air or
like he’s in the middle of a dead sprint instead of standing utterly, perfectly
still. It’s like he’s a statue, like he’s turned to the chill of marble or the
fragility of glass under Shizuo’s touch; if Shizuo couldn’t feel the tremor of
the other’s breathing against him he would almost think it really had happened,
that him overstepping the delicate boundary between them had stolen away the
flushed proof of life that clings to Izaya’s lips and colors the arch of his
cheekbones. Shizuo wonders if he shouldn’t let go, if he shouldn’t release his
hold and retreat back over the invisible line that has always kept him from
doing this before; but the idea tenses against his spine, his body physically
rejecting the idea even as his breath catches as if to draw in more of Izaya’s
presence to fill the space in his chest.
There’s a moment of hesitation, another heartbeat of absolute stillness but for
the race of Shizuo’s pulse; and then Izaya shifts, a tiny movement, lifting his
hand with as much care as if he thinks he’ll break Shizuo’s hold if he moves
too fast, as if he’ll startle Shizuo back if he acts too rapidly. But he is
moving, Shizuo can feel the shift of the action tensing all along Izaya’s
shoulder under his hold; and then there’s a weight at his back, the press of
Izaya’s fist-curled hand settling in against his spine, and Shizuo’s entire
body sags into relief so sharp and bright it’s nearly painful. Izaya shifts his
head, ducking to weight his forehead at Shizuo’s shoulder so his face is
entirely obscured by the dark of the other’s vest; but Shizuo can still hear
the deliberate breath he takes, and he can feel the careful unfurling of
Izaya’s tight-clenched hand opening to fit the delicate span of his fingers
against Shizuo’s back. Izaya takes another inhale, a deep one, like he’s
choking for want of air or maybe for too much of it; and his arm tightens,
flexing to hold Shizuo closer against him, and Shizuo has never loved him so
much in all his life, can barely breathe for the impossible span of affection
trying to force itself into the space of Izaya’s arm caught around him.
Shizuo thinks he might never be able to let Izaya go again. Right now, that
doesn’t seem like very much of a problem.
***** Predicted *****
Shizuo is on his break at work when he gets the text.
He only has a few minutes left to loiter in the back room, where there’s never
much of interest to do except scroll idly through webpages on his phone in
search of something vaguely entertaining to pass the time until he goes back
out for the second half of his shift. When his phone buzzes he thinks at first
it’s Izaya, as it usually is; but the name that flashes over the screen is
Celty instead, the text of the message oo brief and cleanly punctuated to be
Izaya’s style. Shizuo, it says, so short Shizuo can read the whole of the
statement without even tapping through to the message itself, and then
immediately, almost before he has a chance to read the first, Are you at… He
frowns at the screen, taps against the glass to open the texts; but there’s a
third coming in, and that’s the first one that opens under his thumb.
There’s a problem.
There’s nothing particularly dramatic about the statement itself. If it were
Shinra sending the messages Shizuo would roll his eyes and ignore them; even
with Celty, there’s a good chance she’s in the middle of a new documentary
about the threats of alien mind-control and is just warning him about the
latest in a series of potential dangers that have yet to materialize in any
kind of constructive way. But there are the two messages before as well, the
first not-quite greeting and the second, once he opens it: Are you at work? all
three time-stamped with the same numbers, and Shizuo can feel his spine prickle
with some vague sense of foreboding, like sensing a storm in the air that
hasn’t yet materialized into existence.
yeah, he sends back. what’s up?
There’s a pause. Shizuo was expecting an immediate response, and in fact
Celty’s reply comes within the minute; but there are long seconds of waiting,
with his shoulders hunched closer on themselves with every breath he takes, and
by the time his phone buzzes in his hand he’s frowning without realizing it,
glaring down at his screen like he can get a faster response via frustration.
Don’t freak out, okay?
Shizuo grimaces, types fast. tell me.
I was on my way to go grocery shopping downtown when I found something. There’s
a pause, a moment of time for Shizuo’s forehead to crease with confusion at
this complete lack of clarity; and then his phone hums again, displays a
loading screen for a brief moment, and then clears to reveal an image that it
takes him a moment to make sense of. It’s black, mostly, dark like the phone
didn’t have enough illumination to take the photograph; but there’s something
bright in the middle, over-exposed by what is clearly a flash, and then Shizuo
blinks and pieces it into Celty’s dark-gloved hand holding the handle of an
open folding knife.
His phone hums while his breath is still catching on recognition in his chest.
Isn’t this Izaya’s?
Shizuo can feel rationality evaporate out of his awareness like fog before a
sunrise. Some part of him is shouting for calm, is trying to point out that
it’s just a knife, that Izaya might have dropped it, maybe it was abandoned or
lost or stolen; but it’s open in the picture, the blade left uncovered as it
would never be if Izaya had just lost it, and more than that Shizuo can feel
the weight of inevitability bearing down on him, all the somedays and
eventuallys finally outpacing him to catch up to Izaya while he’s not there,
while he’s not around to protect him.
where
Celty texts back an address, followed immediately by I can come and pick you up
and, hard on the heels of that one, Don’t freak out!, the messages arriving
with a speed that more than demonstrates the frantic pace of her texting. But
Shizuo can’t heed to the request of that last, and he can’t hold still long
enough for the first, so he just types back meet me there as he’s moving for
the door to the main room of the bar.
There are people in the room, a few patrons sitting  around the edge of the
space and Shizuo’s manager behind the counter to handle any orders that come in
on Shizuo’s break. “Ah, Heiwaijima-kun,” he says as Shizuo emerges from the
back room. “You’re just--”
“Sorry,” Shizuo says without looking up and without slowing the pace of his
stride. “I have to go.” And he’s going, moving across the front room of the bar
and for the door while his manager is still gaping shock at his abrupt
response. Shizuo doesn’t look back, doesn’t wait for a reply; by the time he’s
pushing the bar door open and stepping out onto the street he’s forgotten all
about his job, and his manager, and the entirety of the building at his back.
There’s just the sidewalk in front of him, the pavement clear like it’s laying
down a path for him to follow, and he breaks into a run without even pausing
for breath, bolting down the street with a speed he didn’t know he had at his
command, adrenaline-fueled muscles granting him the relief of a ground-covering
pace instead of the usual destruction he’s never wanted. He pauses at a red
light, trapped by the flow of cars in front of him and the warning on the
crossing sign; he takes the moment to send a text, are you okay? sent to
Izaya’s number before the light changes and he resumes his full-speed run.
He doesn’t wait for a reply. He knows he won’t get one. His heart is pounding
with echoes of his own words like a prophecy: this is going to catch up to you
someday, I’ll have to come find you in the hospital, I can’t be with you all
the time and his vision is blurring, his sight hazing with memories of dark
bruises on pale skin, with nightmares of blood spilling over soft hair, and
he’s gasping for air but his legs are still moving, his body is still carrying
him forward as fast as his legs can take him to where Izaya is, to where he
should have been all along.
If his strength is worth anything at all, he thinks, it will get him to Izaya
in time.
***** Safe *****
Shizuo doesn’t remember much of the search. His feet carry him through the
familiar streets of the city, send him forward over the intervening distance
between his work and where Celty found Izaya’s knife without any need for
conscious input from his brain. His heart is pounding more on panic than
breathlessness, the adrenaline surging in his veins insisting he has to be in
time, that he has to move faster, that he can make it if he only takes an extra
step, if he can just move himself more quickly across the few blocks that have
never seemed like such a great distance before. By the time he rounds the
corner to see Celty pulled over at the edge of the sidewalk he’s all-out
sprinting, his legs trembling with the effort and his hands balled into
preemptive fists that don’t ease even when he pauses for a moment to see the
knife Celty shows him in one gloved hand.
It was in front of that alley, she types out, her fingers moving shadow-fast
and still too slowly for Shizuo’s taste. There’s nothing else to see. I’m
sorry.
Shizuo barely finishes reading the message before he’s turning back, pivoting
to stride towards the dark of the alley and peer into the shadows as if they’re
likely to offer him the information they denied to Celty. There’s nothing to
see, no dark shapes and no trace of the blood Shizuo was half-afraid of; if he
were relying on vision alone there would be nothing at all to tell him where to
go next. But when he breathes in there’s a metallic edge to the air, a hint of
bitter spice clinging to the familiar smell of the city, and “He’s here,”
Shizuo says without turning around or giving more explanation. “Wait for me.”
It’s not until he’s said the words that he realizes how abrupt they sound, that
he hears the usual steadiness of his voice undone by the rough edges of panic,
and he glances back to Celty, starting on the “Sorry,” demanded by friendship
even as everything in his body screams at him to move. “I’m just--”
Celty already has her phone up, the screen angled towards him like a sign. It’s
fine, it says, the letters large for him to read without leaning in. Go find
him.
“Thank you,” Shizuo says, and he’s moving, turning to stride down the dark of
the alley in pursuit of that licorice tang pressing hot against his tongue.
He can’t run. The scent is too faint, too much of a whisper for him to run
without losing it completely; but it’s there, the unmistakable trace of Izaya
leading him down the alley and around a corner he didn’t know was there,
through a narrow passage and down a flight of stairs. He forgets each space as
he passes through it, his feet guided entirely by the ever-increasing trace of
Izaya clinging to the air like a trail laid out just for him, like markers
dropped in the other’s wake for Shizuo to follow upon his arrival. It’s oddly
comforting, in a strange way, as if the farther Shizuo goes the more proof he
gathers of Izaya’s existence, like the trace of the other in the air was left
deliberately, like Izaya knew he would be coming for him. Shizuo follows the
trail without looking around him, without pausing to take stock of his
surroundings; and then he’s in front of a door, the metal weight of it against
its frame promising some kind of resistance, and the bitter smell of licorice
is so strong in the air around him it burns his tongue when he inhales.
He hits the door first. It’s not a knock, and not intended as one; it’s
intended as a test, a weight to slam upon the barrier between him and Izaya to
see which part is likely to give way first. The door rattles, the frame creaks;
and Shizuo curls his fingers tighter against his fist, and braces his feet at
the floor, and swings a punch with the full force of his strength behind it.
The door bends, the frame gives way in a rain of splintering wood, and Shizuo
is stepping forward before it’s hit the floor, is breathing in as himself and
breathing out as the monster he is letting himself become. There’s a shape in
front of him, a shadow emerging out of the cloud of dust left by the
destruction of the door, and Shizuo’s body moves without his thought, instinct
reading the breadth of the silhouette's shoulders and the shift of its hair and
coming up with not Izaya as a good enough reason to let the strength of his arm
swing forward and into the figure’s outline. The body flies backwards, making a
brief, broken-off sound of sudden pain as the inertia of Shizuo’s blow forces
it sideways to crash against the too-frail support of the wall; but Shizuo’s
adrenaline doesn’t care about the other anymore, not with the weight of
experience to say the attacker won’t be moving again. He’s looking towards the
middle of the room instead, blinking through the clearing dust of the
destruction he caused to see the rest of the people around him. There’s another
stranger, with hunched-narrow shoulders and the terrified eyes of a frightened
animal; and in the middle of the room, his head bowed as he twists his wrist
free of the loosened ropes of insufficient bonds, Izaya, breathing and moving
and very clearly alive. Something in Shizuo drops into relief, some bone-deep
panic easing its hold at the back of his head to grant him some shard of
rationality again, and when he looks back to the other man it’s with the
capability for speech on his tongue again, with space in his chest for
something other than the all-encompassing terror that he has been carrying for
the last several minutes.
Not that coherency means he’s likely to be forgiving.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growls at the stranger, tipping his chin down and
throwing the words at the other while his shoulders hunch onfury, on
protectiveness, on building rage that someone, anyone, would have the nerve to
lay a finger on Izaya and think to escape Shizuo’s wrath. Shizuo can see the
stranger flinch, can see his shoulders collapse in on themselves; but then his
spine steadies, his gaze comes up, and when his jaw sets it’s into a line of
frustrated petulance instead of the cringing retreat some part of Shizuo
expected.
“You wouldn’t remember me,” the stranger snaps, his voice bleeding injured
feelings that Shizuo dismisses as easily as the threat provided by the fist the
other is making at his side. “No one remembers me, not after him, not after he
ruined me.” He’s gaining speed for his words, spilling them one atop the other
like they’re tripping over each other, as if being forgettable is some kind of
a burden, as if he hasn’t had precisely what Shizuo has craved with all the
ache of impossibility since he was ten years old. “I should have pushed him off
the roof when I had the chance.” Recognition flashes into Shizuo’s mind all at
once, with the clarity of a lightning stroke grounding out against a long-past
memory of Izaya caught against a rooftop fence, of a frightened boy with
cringing shoulders skittering away at Shizuo’s approach, at the flicker of
warmth in his chest at seeing someone safer for his presence instead of in
greater danger.
“I remember you now,” he says, talking over the other’s words without paying
attention to whatever rambling illogic he’s spouting now. Shizuo can’t remember
his name, but now that he looks the face is faintly familiar, the expression of
vicious self-importance the same now as it was in middle school. “You shouldn’t
blame other people for your own mistakes.”
The stranger’s expression collapses, the lines of building anger in his jaw
settling into the hard edges of determination as his arms tense on threat.
“Fuck you,” he spits, his arm swinging out wide from where his hand has been
hidden in his coat, and Izaya screams: “Shizuo” tearing past his throat with
all-out panic Shizuo has never heard from him before. It’s that that shudders
adrenaline through him, that stalls his heart on a surge of panic so strong it
locks him still, far more so than the sudden splash of pain at his stomach.
Shizuo blinks, his attention swinging down for a moment. His attacker has a
knife in his hand, he sees now; the bright edge of metal must have been hidden
in his jacket before for Shizuo to not see it. And he’s stabbed Shizuo, has
sunk the blade some inches past the dark of the vest the other’s still wearing;
his hand is still locked in a white-knuckled grip around the handle.
“The fuck,” Shizuo growls, and reaches to close his hand around the other’s
wrist and force him back bodily. There’s wet against his skin, the wound
spilling blood to soak through his shirt and stick it close to his body, but he
doesn’t look down to it; he grabs at his attacker’s shirt instead, lifting him
fully off his feet with the same adrenaline that so struck him at the sound of
his name like a desperate prayer on Izaya’s lips. He turns sideways, flings the
other towards the wall opposite from that crushed by the weight of Shizuo’s
first attacker, and Shizuo leaves him to collapse to the floor as he strides
towards the middle of the room.
He has more important things to worry about.
“Shit,” he gasps, the expletive carried on the shudder of breath that leaves
him as he sees Izaya, still half-tied to a chair and with his face paler and
eyes darker than Shizuo has ever seen him before but here, alive, breathing
right in front of Shizuo and with no imminent danger looming over him. Shizuo’s
reflex drops him to his knees, or maybe it’s his strength giving way as it
never has before, maybe it’s his preternatural power collapsing under the
weight of the concern and horror and relief that surges through him to steal
his breath and override his heartbeat. Shizuo’s hand comes out to close at
Izaya’s shoulder, and his hold might be too rough but he can’t tell anymore,
and he can’t make himself loosen the grip that promises to keep Izaya here, and
safe, and with him. “Izaya, fuck, are you okay?”
Izaya blinks. There’s a strange blankness behind his eyes, a complete lack of
tension at his mouth; he’s staring at Shizuo as if he’s never seen him before,
as if he’s come entirely detached from the world and is drifting away even from
Shizuo’s desperate hold at his shoulder. “What?”
“Are you okay,” Shizuo repeats, the words shattering over the terror clutching
at his heart. He doesn’t mean to shake the other, doesn’t mean to jostle him
against the chair he’s half-bound to; it’s a reflexive motion, a desperate
attempt to hold Izaya still in his own body, to force that terrifying unfocus
away from the dark of his eyes. “Izaya, what did they do to you?”
Izaya blinks again. “My hand,” he says, sounding distracted, as if his own
well-being is an afterthought, is barely worth remembering. His gaze is sliding
down, is clinging to Shizuo’s vest as his forehead creases on confusion
Shizuo’s never seen in his face before. “You just got stabbed.”
“Huh?” Shizuo says, his attention stumbling over this abrupt change in topic;
then he looks down, following Izaya’s focus to the blood clotting itself to
dark against the front of his darker vest. “Oh.” He reaches for the tear the
knife left in the fabric, collects a trickle of blood against his fingertips;
he can feel the injury aching dully, but it’s distant enough that he can easily
ignore it. He’s sure he’s done worse to himself with less intention. “Guess
I’ll have to get some stitches.”
Izaya makes a tiny sound, the very beginning of a laugh without quite enough
force behind it to make it to audibility. “I can’t believe you,” he says, his
mouth tugging on a dazed smile like he can’t figure out how he’s meant to
react. “You--you’re really going to walk off a knife wound.”
“I’m not going to walk it off,” Shizuo tells him, looking away from the glazed
focus of Izaya’s eyes and down for a moment, to the knots binding the other’s
feet against the legs of the chair. It’s easy to fit his fingers into the gap
between Izaya’s ankles and the wooden support of the legs, easier still to tug
hard enough for the rope to tear like thread and free Izaya’s feet. “I’ll take
care of it later.” That just leaves Izaya’s other hand still tied down; Shizuo
braces himself, and sets his jaw against the surge of adrenaline that he knows
is going to hit him, and turns to really look at the damage.
It’s bad. Shizuo doesn’t know anything about anatomy except what he
accidentally discovered as a small child in possession of more strength than
his body could bear, but he doesn’t need proper training to recognize the angle
of Izaya’s fingers as wrong on such a fundamental level that it knots to horror
in his stomach. The pinky is the worst, he thinks, it’s bruised badly enough
that Shizuo can see the dark of blood rising to the surface all along the off-
center wrong of the bone; but the other two aren’t much better, with Izaya’s
ring and middle finger offset from the joint in a way that makes Shizuo’s
throat tighten, that makes his chest clench on panic. His stomach twists, his
breathing catches; but he reaches for the knot holding Izaya’s wrist down
anyway, carefully unfastening the rope from its twist and growling “What
happened?” as a better point of focus than the wail in the back of his mind:
his hand, hisfingers, is he going to be okay?
“I think they’re dislocated,” Izaya says, his voice oddly calm as he watches
Shizuo instead of paying any attention to his hand. His mouth is still tugging
against that smile; it makes him look soft, warm, affectionate in a way Shizuo
can’t recall ever seeing before. “He--he was right, you really are a monster.”
Shizuo looks up to fix Izaya with a glare. “Would you rather I collapsed and
left you tied up to wait for them to come to?” he demands, relief taking the
upper hand to turn his words lilting over teasing in the back of his throat;
but Izaya’s gaze is sliding away from his, the soft of that smile going slack
as his eyelashes flutter, as his head falls back against the chair behind him.
Shizuo’s stomach drops, panic seizes hard against his spine again, and “Izaya”
he grates, hearing the name go nearly to a sob in his throat as he reaches out
without thinking to catch his hand against Izaya’s tipping head, to press his
palm to the chill of the other’s pale skin and fit his thumb against Izaya’s
cheekbone. His fingers catch at soft hair, his touch ruffles through the
strands, but Shizuo doesn’t have the attention to spare for appreciation at the
moment, not with Izaya’s lashes dipping to the weight of unconsciousness, not
with the support of his hand the only thing keeping the other from a boneless
slump against the chair. “Shit, Izaya, don’t pass out on me.”
Izaya’s mouth shifts, his forehead creases. “I’m not,” he says, blinking hard
like he’s fighting himself back to awareness out of pure stubbornness. There’s
a moment of effort; then his gaze shifts and his eyes land back on Shizuo’s
face with more focus than they had before. His mouth is set into a line, his
jaw clenched on irritation that Shizuo recognizes far better than the uncanny
softness that was all across his expression before. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Shizuo snaps, and looks back down to Izaya’s hand still laid
slack over the arm of the chair under him. He lets his touch against the
other’s cheek go to reach out for Izaya’s wrist instead; his hold is gentle,
this time, as careful as he knows how to be, but all the care in the world
can’t undo the damage already done. “Your hand is fucked.”
“I know,” Izaya says, biting off the words with a faint echo of his usual whip-
quick response behind the weight of pain saturating his voice. “Thanks for the
reminder.”
Shizuo stares at Izaya’s hand for a moment. His stomach is still dropping; he
feels like it has been for minutes, like it’s still toppling through space with
no indication of ever hitting ground. Izaya’s littlest finger is visibly
broken; Shizuo doesn’t want to even look at it, as if the weight of his
consideration can carry enough burden to cause further damage. But the other
two are going dark as he watches, the tips of Izaya’s fingers turning to
purple-blue mottled over bloodless pale, and all Shizuo can think about is the
minutes it will take to get Izaya to Shinra’s apartment and the damage being
done with every heartbeat of time that passes with the joints out of alignment
as they are.
“Shit,” Shizuo gasps, blinking hard in an attempt to clear the tears blurring
his vision, to steady himself for what the frantic desperation of adrenaline
tells him he has to do. “You.” He chokes on the words, has to swallow hard to
clear his voice. “We have to fix these.”
“I know,” Izaya says, his words echoing distantly behind the roaring of
Shizuo’s heart beating too-fast and too-loud in his ears. His unhurt finger
tenses, pressing against the arm of the chair like he’s bracing himself. Shizuo
can hear the deliberate inhale he takes. “Let me go, I can do it.”
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Shizuo grates, looking up to offer a scowl as his
eyes burn with tears. “You can’t relocate your own fingers, you’ll pass out.”
“What do you suggest instead?” Izaya asks. The words would be aggressive, in
another tone, in another situation; but Izaya’s just gazing at Shizuo, his head
tipped back to rest against the support of the chair back and his eyes fixed on
Shizuo’s face with a strange, eerie calm, as if it’s someone else’s hand
swelling to ugly bruises under Shizuo’s featherlight touch. When he blinks it’s
very slow, like he’s struggling with the dark weight of his lashes. “Just leave
them to swell until I can get to Shinra’s?”
“Fuck,” Shizuo says, because he knows the answer, because he knew the answer
heartbeats ago, because it’s the panicky awareness of what he has to do that’s
burning emotion behind his eyes and blurring his vision at exactly the wrong
time. He looks away from the hazy weight of Izaya’s stare, makes himself really
look at the ugly angle of Izaya’s dislocated fingers while he braces himself
for action. “I’ll do it.”
“Right,” Izaya says, his voice a little bit breathless and a lot strained, like
he’s about to laugh or sob or both. “That’s a great idea, Shizu-chan, just go
ahead and accidentally tear my fingers off, that’s.” His breath catches, his
speech flickering to silence for a moment while he manages another breath.
“That’s gonna work great.”
“Don’t call me that,” Shizuo says without thinking about it. He can’t afford
the distraction at the moment, not with Izaya’s wrist braced in the tightest
hold he can manage and his heart hammering like it’s trying to shatter its way
clear through his ribcage. He feels like he’s going to be sick, like all his
skin is simultaneously trying to burn and freeze in the grip of horror; but his
body is moving on its own to take the need for conscious thought away from him,
and he’s never been so grateful for it. He reaches out to close his hold around
Izaya’s middle finger, to tighten his grip as hard as he dares against the
fragility of bone so close under the skin, and even as he sets his shoulders
and takes a breath to brace himself his mind is screaming, is wailing protest
at the very idea of someone damaging this, of someone having this kind of
elegant beauty under their touch and trying to destroy it. The illogic of it
fills his head, hums in his spine, unfurls into his lungs; and then Shizuo
breathes out in a rush, empties all the sharp-edged emotion from himself at one
go, and moves immediately, before any of it has time to reform. Izaya’s finger
shifts in his hold, resisting for the briefest of moments before it gives way
to slide back into place; and Izaya moans, the sound raw and low and so overtly
sexual that all Shizuo’s thoughts stall as his skin flares into responsive
heat. Izaya’s arching off the chair, his head canting back to tense all down
the line of his throat, and Shizuo lets his hold on the other’s finger go, his
grip falling slack as he stares at Izaya gasping into the most erotic sound
Shizuo has ever heard in his entire life. Izaya’s shoulders ease, the tension
tight through his body goes slack to drop him back against the support of the
chair, and Shizuo is left gaping as Izaya trembles with what looks like nothing
so much as orgasmic aftershocks. Izaya’s pain-pale cheeks are flushed with
color, his lips parted and lashes dark over his eyes, and Shizuo can’t breathe
for how painfully, shockingly hot his entire body has gone. He has a million
things to say, suggestion and understanding and startled awareness all at once;
but coherency fails him as it always does, collapses into a single bright point
of focus, and when he opens his mouth to speak all that comes out is “Izaya,”
spilling shocked and soft past his lips. Izaya’s head turns, his eyes opening
as he looks to Shizuo, and for the span of a heartbeat they’re staring at each
other like that, Izaya trembling through inexplicable arousal in front of
Shizuo and Shizuo with the most agonizing, inappropriate hard-on of his entire
life. Shizuo can’t think what to say, doesn’t know what to do; and then Izaya
blinks, and turns his head away, and sets his jaw like he’s building a wall
around himself.
“Do the other one,” he says, his voice low and raw and darker than Shizuo has
ever heard it before.
Shizuo imagines forcing Izaya’s finger back into place, thinks about Izaya
shuddering under his hold in the grip of unmistakable pleasure. Is it like that
every time? he wants to ask. Is it because it hurts? Is it because it helps?
His memory is skidding over the past, scrambling for traction against this new
piece of information; he’s seen Izaya hurt before, seen him white-faced and
gasping past the weight of kicked-in bruises against his ribcage and the threat
of broken bones and worse, and there wasn’t anything behind the tight-wound
pain of his expression except the hurt itself. But he’s seen Izaya shrug off
the bruises of Shizuo’s hold too, has seen Izaya laugh at the danger of
Shizuo’s clenched fist and purr at the shove of an open palm, and echoing in
his ears: I thought you knew, as if Shizuo’s inhuman strength carries such
obvious appeal that it doesn’t need stating.
Is it because it’sme?
Shizuo takes a breath. His lungs tremor over the action, his lips tremble with
anticipation for words too long left unvoiced. “Izaya--”
“Fix it,” Izaya says, sharper and harder and still without looking back. “Or
let me go and I’ll do it myself.”
Shizuo doesn’t know what to do. He has no doubt that Izaya will try to
straighten his finger on his own if Shizuo refuses to; he might even succeed,
Shizuo isn’t willing to consider anything impossible for the other. But
Shizuo’s still breathless with heat, still flushed more than half-hard just on
the memory of the sound Izaya offered, of the picture Izaya made, and he wants
to help but he doesn’t trust his own judgment in this, not when his whole body
is aching with desire to see Izaya look like that again, to hear Izaya sound
like that again, to make Izaya react to him like that again. He can’t think,
can’t work through the logic or the ethics of his decision; and then Izaya’s
mouth tenses, and he drags hard against Shizuo’s hold, and Shizuo’s fingers
make the decision for him and tighten of their own accord.
“No,” Shizuo says, and it’s surrender and anticipation at once, his voice
giving way to the trembling force of want running through his entire body.
“I’ll do it.” His stomach drops, his throat tenses, panic seizes tight all
along his spine; but his hold at Izaya’s wrist is tensing, and he’s reaching
for Izaya’s other finger, and when he takes a breath he can taste licorice
heavy like a promise in the air. “You ready?”
Izaya lets out a breath. Shizuo can feel him brace himself against the chair.
“Yes.”
Shizuo moves at once, without hesitating to give either of them time to balk.
Izaya’s finger shifts under his hold, the joint dragging for a moment before
sliding back into place, and Shizuo can’t help but look up to see the way
Izaya’s expression goes slack with heat, to watch the way that helpless groan
of satisfaction looks spilling past the desperate tension of Izaya’s clenched
teeth. Shizuo huffs an exhale, the sound too faint to be heard over the
breathless skid of Izaya’s own reaction, but it still feels like fire on his
tongue, like all the years of unacknowledged desire are coalescing to spill to
incandescent flame in the dim-lit air around them and illuminate everything
into clarity at last. Shizuo can feel his whole body thrumming with heat, can
feel the ache of arousal pressing him hard against his pants with every beat of
his heart in his chest, and he doesn’t need to look to know Izaya’s hard too,
doesn’t need to see the tension straining at the front of the other’s jeans
when he can see desire so clear in the flush across Izaya’s cheeks and the
curve of his throat as he gasps for air.
It’s very still afterwards. Shizuo lets Izaya’s hand go, drops his grip away
from the other’s bruised finger and loosens his bracing hold against Izaya’s
wrist into an attempt at casual weight instead of a forceful grip; but there’s
nothing casual about the contact now, if there ever was, nothing accidental
about the heat radiating off Izaya’s skin to catch against Shizuo’s fingertips.
Shizuo’s heart is still pounding on adrenaline, the tension in his body still
demanding release, and for a brief moment of complete insanity he thinks about
leaning in to press his mouth to Izaya’s, about reaching out to slide his
fingers under the fall of the other’s shirt, about unfastening the front of
those dusty-dark jeans and pressing his mouth to the tension across Izaya’s
stomach, to the sweat-damp of his skin, to the bitter salt of his cock. Izaya
might let him, Shizuo thinks, with the echo of heat from his own voice still
humming in the air around him; Shizuo could duck his head over Izaya’s lap,
could press mouth and lips and tongue to Izaya’s skin and draw those sounds
past his lips again, could urge him into shuddering pleasure without need for
any pain at all. He wants it, wants Izaya, wants to taste salt on his lips and
licorice on his tongue; and then Izaya takes a breath, and Shizuo can feel the
moment evaporate even before Izaya says, “I need to see Shinra” with his voice
stripped down to blank honesty by pure exhaustion. Shizuo glances at Izaya’s
hand, at the joints thankfully back in alignment but still swollen to what must
be agony, and he nods, and lets Izaya’s hand go so he can push himself to his
feet.
“Celty’s outside,” he says aloud. It’s strange to offer the statement, strange
to realize he was standing at the opening of a dark alleyway only a few minutes
before; he feels like his whole world has shifted, has remade itself, has
oriented itself to a new gravity, a new constant in his universe to go with the
understanding still so breathlessly clear in his head. When he reaches out it’s
to offer his left hand for support instead of his right, and Izaya doesn’t
hesitate in lifting his uninjured hand to close around Shizuo’s. His palm is
warm to the touch, his grip folding in around Shizuo’s wrist like it was meant
to be there, and Shizuo pulls Izaya to his feet with no effort to the action at
all. “She can get you back to Shinra’s faster than we can walk.”
“Yeah?” Izaya says, shifting his hurt hand to hide the bruises across his
fingers under the dark edge of his coat. His grip on Shizuo’s wrist tightens
for a moment, presses warmth deep under Shizuo’s skin to wrap around the
cadence of his heart beating steadily in his chest. “And you’re going to what,
exactly, walk across town bleeding from a knife wound?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Shizuo says without looking away from the dark of
Izaya’s hair and without letting his hold on the other’s hand go. He can still
feel the rush of adrenaline in his veins, can still feel the frantic edge on
his heartbeat slower to fade than the incoherent anger was; but he just feels
heavy, now, as if the gravity of Izaya’s touch is enough to pull him down to a
reality he never wants to leave again. “It’s not even bleeding that much.”
Izaya’s lashes flutter, his mouth tugs onto a smile. He doesn’t look up from
the front of Shizuo’s vest. “Monster.”
It’s not an insult. Izaya’s mouth is curving on a smile Shizuo can see even
with his head tipped forward like it is, and the word comes out as soft and
warm as if it’s a confession wrapped up into the simple syllables of the
familiar word. Shizuo’s chest aches, his eyes burn, and when he says “Brat”
it’s straining over the weight of emotion in him, dragging hard across the
worry and concern and love sticking so close to his throat he can’t strip them
free even if he tried. Izaya shuts his eyes, ducks his head like he can’t bear
the weight of Shizuo’s words, and Shizuo reaches out without thinking and
without hesitating to catch Izaya against the wall of his arm, to pull the
fragility of the other’s body tight against him. Izaya doesn’t resist and
doesn’t pull away; he just lets his forehead land against Shizuo’s shoulder,
lets their clasped hands fit between the shared rhythm of their heartbeats, and
when Shizuo ducks his head down he can press his mouth against Izaya’s hair,
can breathe in deep against that same bittersweet scent that led him here where
and when Izaya needed him.
“Fuck,” he sighs, resignation and relief in equal parts in his throat. “You
really need a bodyguard, Izaya.”
It sounds like a statement, a simple observation of obvious fact under the
circumstances. But Shizuo can feel determination like iron in his veins, and he
can feel Izaya’s hand tight in his hold, and when he says the other’s name it
tastes like a promise on his tongue.
Next time, he’ll keep Izaya safe himself.
***** Initiative *****
The trip back to Shinra’s apartment goes much faster than Shizuo expected.
Celty’s motorcycle is faster than he’s ever realized before, weaving them in
and out of what little traffic there is on the streets so silently Shizuo feels
a little like he’s watching a movie instead of living through real life, and if
the engine is struggling to keep up with the speed Celty sets there’s no sign
of effort in sound or motion. The seat turns out to be bigger than Shizuo
thought it was, with enough space for all three of them to fit together if they
press close, and it’s Shizuo who ends up in the middle, with a hand on Celty’s
shoulder to steady himself against the sharp swing of the turns they take and
Izaya so close against his back he feels like he’s a part of Shizuo more than
his own person. He had climbed onto the bike behind Shizuo without any
hesitation at all, had pressed in until he was flush against Shizuo’s spine and
could slide his good hand around the other’s waist to hold himself in against
Shizuo’s body, and then he turned his head in against the other’s shoulder and
didn’t move again for the rest of the ride. It seems to only take a few
minutes, far less time than it reasonably can given the distance they have to
cover, but Shizuo’s heart spends the entire time thudding itself to frantic
appreciation inside his chest even as he tries to maintain his balance as much
for Izaya’s sake as for his own. Izaya doesn’t shift at all; Shizuo would worry
he had passed out except for the tension of that arm holding around his waist
and the fingers gripping tight like Izaya’s trying to pull Shizuo closer to him
than they already are. It’s an endless distance and far too short at once, and
then Celty is pulling up in front of the apartment complex and Shizuo is
sliding off the bike, turning back as fast as he moves to catch Izaya’s elbow
and steady him over the few feet of distance to the front door. Izaya doesn’t
protest this hold, even though he seems to be moving reasonably well even
without Shizuo’s help, and Shizuo doesn’t let go even for the elevator ride to
Shinra’s floor and the brief walk down the hallway to the front door. He feels
a little like Izaya might vanish if he lets him go, might evaporate into the
air and out of his reach, and Izaya seems wholly willing to be led by Shizuo’s
hold as if by a leash as the three of them make their way to the apartment.
Celty steps ahead to unlock the door for them and holds it open for Shizuo and
Izaya to go through first, and Shinra’s waiting, smiling bright at the two of
them as they step through the doorway.
“You made it!” he says, and moves forward to catch at Izaya’s injured arm
before Shizuo has a chance to hiss warning at him. Shizuo’s shoulders tense,
his whole body goes taut on worry, but Shinra doesn’t jostle Izaya’s hand at
all, just pushes up the other’s sleeve with a brisk efficiency that has him
sliding a needle into the other’s arm before Shizuo can find voice to protest.
“Hey,” he snaps, but Shinra’s drawing the needle free already and letting
Izaya’s arm go so he can pat rapidly along the other’s shoulders and peer into
his face.
“You’re not bleeding anywhere, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer either
from Izaya or Shizuo; he’s reaching for Izaya’s elbow instead, closing his hand
around the other’s arm and tugging him free of Shizuo’s hold. Shizuo has a
shiver of irrational panic, baseless worry telling him to keep Izaya as close
to hand as he can; but Izaya’s steady on his own feet, and Shizuo doesn’t have
a good excuse to keep holding onto him, and then Shinra’s settling him into one
of the chairs at the edge of the living room to await more thorough treatment.
Shizuo would protest this too, if Shinra gave him a chance for it, but Shinra’s
coming back to him, urging him towards the couch at the same time he instructs
Shizuo to “take off your shirt so I can get that blood cleaned up.” Shinra’s
tone allows for no argument, and even if Shizuo offered any he suspects it
would just end in even more of a delay before Izaya gets help, and Izaya looks
like he’s okay where he is, even if he’s relying more on the support of the
chair than usual and looking far paler than he ordinarily does.
“What did you give him?” Shizuo demands while he’s stripping off his vest and
working through the buttons on his bloodstained shirt. “It’s not some weird
experimental drug or anything, is it?”
Shinra laughs. This would be more reassuring without the manic edge that always
comes with his laughter; as it is Shizuo’s shoulders tense on panic for the
moment before Shinra says “No, no!” as he’s moving to shuffle through the array
of first aid materials laid out over the coffee table in front of Shizuo. “Just
painkillers. I’ll take a look at him when I’m done with you.”
“I’m fine,” Shizuo sighs, but he doesn’t bother offering more protest, just
shrugs his shirt off over the couch behind him and tugs off his undershirt to
follow. “It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
“Just to be sure!” Shinra soothes, offering a comforting smile that he directs
more at the blood clotted against Shizuo’s stomach than for the other’s face.
“I’ll clean it up and put a few stitches in and then you’ll be all set.” Shizuo
rolls his eyes for this unnecessary concern for his well-being when he’s fine,
when he can feel even the ache of the injury fading out of importance in his
own awareness, but he still leans back against the couch so Shinra can start
wiping the dried blood off his skin. The cloth is cool, almost soothing for the
first moment of contact, and then it brushes the edge of the wound itself and
the cool flares to heat and sends a wave of stinging hurt up Shizuo’s spine
that has him tensing and hissing protest before he can think.
“This really isn’t that bad,” Shinra says with absolute calm and no hint of
apology for the burn of the disinfectant he’s wiping across torn skin. “You got
off lucky with just a scratch.”
“It’s not just a scratch.” That’s Izaya, speaking from where he’s slouching at
the far side of the room; he’s watching them when Shizuo looks over at him, his
lashes heavy over his eyes and his gaze as dreamy and detached as his voice.
“He got stabbed, it must have been inches deep.” Izaya sounds distracted, like
he’s going through the motions of the conversation instead of coming at it with
his usual sharp-edged aggression; even as Shizuo watches his lashes dip over
his eyes like they’re going heavy, like he’s struggling to keep them open.
Shinra waves a hand without looking up. “This is Shizuo we’re talking about.
It’d take a lot more than that to really hurt him.”
“That does hurt,” Shizuo reminds Shinra as the other presses down hard with the
stinging cool of the cloth in his hand. “Can’t you be a little gentler?”
“Take some ibuprofen when I’m done,” Shinra tells him, setting the cloth aside
and reaching for the needle and thread instead. “I just need to patch you up so
I can see what’s wrong with Izaya.”
“His hand is fucked up,” Shizuo says. Shinra threads the needle with
businesslike efficiency and leans over Shizuo to start setting stitches at the
open tear of the injury. The needle hurts with a duller ache than the
disinfectant did, but Shizuo isn’t really thinking about his own pain anymore;
he’s looking over instead, to where Izaya has shut his eyes and tipped his head
against the chair back behind him. His hand is slack over the arm of the chair,
his fingers draped casually against the support as if he’s fine, as if
everything is perfectly ordinary; if Shizuo couldn’t see the bruising seeping
to dark along Izaya’s pinky and the joints of his ring and middle fingers, he
wouldn’t think he was hurt at all. “They broke his finger and dislocated two
others.” Shizuo’s memory offers a flare of clarity, the echo of Izaya’s voice
breaking wide and desperate over heat; he shoves it back, pins it down hard
with present-moment focus until there’s nothing but the color in his cheeks to
give him away. “We got them back in place but--”
“You should have left it alone,” Shinra says immediately. He’s not looking up
to see Shizuo’s flush; his head is ducked down over the row of neat stitches
he’s setting into the line of the injury across Shizuo’s stomach. “His fingers
might have been broken and moving them would have made them worse.”
Shizuo’s skin goes cold with panic, with unwarranted fear for might haves that
never materialized. “I couldn’t leave them,” he protests, past-tense worry
forming itself to the harsh edge of defensiveness in his throat. “He said he’d
straighten them himself if I didn’t.”
“He would have passed out from the pain,” Shinra says instantly, as if this is
any kind of a comfort to Shizuo’s too-vivid imagination. “You could probably
relocate your own fingers if you needed to, but you’re unusual.” There’s a
murmur of sound from the other side of the room, Shizuo thinks he hears the
sound of Izaya’s voice; but when he looks over the other is still leaning back
against his chair, still has his eyes shut like he’s drowsing more than
awaiting medical attention for a broken finger. Shinra doesn’t look up at all;
he still has his head bowed over Shizuo’s injury, is still working through
stitch after stitch to pin the wound shut.
“He’ll be alright for now,” Shinra says, sounding as offhand about Izaya’s
injuries as he did about Shizuo’s. “I’ll splint his fingers as soon as I’m done
with you. Let me just finish these stitches and then I’ll get the bandage on.”
“Are you sure he’ll be okay?” Shizuo asks.
“He’ll be fine,” Shinra says, pulling the needle through the last of the
stitches. “It’s just a few hurt fingers, no one ever died from that.” He huffs
a laugh that isn’t reassuring at all. “At least not just from that.”
“I don’t know if that’s everything,” Shizuo says. “He might be hiding something
a lot more serious that I didn’t notice.”
“You worry about him too much,” Shinra tells him as he ties off the stitches
and cuts the thread free. “He’s not going to bleed out without one of us
noticing, Shizuo.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him if he didn’t get into so much trouble all the
time,” Shizuo sighs, looking away as Shinra starts to settle a bandage over the
dark of the stitches and the raw red of his injury. Izaya still has his eyes
shut, is still leaning back against the chair; he looks exhausted, all the
color in his face drained by pain to leave just the shadows of sleeplessness
under the dark of his lashes and the soft give of hurt against the curve of his
mouth. “He just got kidnapped and tortured, I have every reason to worry.”
“It’s not helping anything right now,” Shinra points out with perfectly logical
and perfectly useless calm. “You made it there in time to stop anything too
terrible from happening, the best you can do now is let me finish so I can set
his finger.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo says, but he’s not really listening; he’s watching Izaya,
frowning at the angle of the other’s shoulders and the tilt of his head against
the chair. He really does look pale, his lips are nearly bloodless with lack of
color, and the weight of his body is -- and Izaya tips sideways to slump over
the arm of the chair, and Shizuo says “Izaya” with what’s left of his breath as
he pushes up off the couch and away from Shinra’s work taping his bandage into
place. Shinra sighs protest at the interruption but Shizuo doesn’t look back to
him; his blood is going cold, his skin prickling into panic as Izaya doesn’t
respond. “Izaya,” he says again, and Celty’s turning back from the hallway and
Shinra’s looking to follow Shizuo’s attention but Shizuo’s the one who gets
there first, who’s reaching out to catch at the angle of Izaya’s shoulder as he
snaps “Izaya” with all the volume pure panic can give him. He thinks Izaya
might be unconscious, has a moment of horror at the slack part of the other’s
lips and the weight of his shut eyes; but then Izaya’s lashes shift, and his
mouth tenses, and he’s blinking back to clarity as Shizuo leans in over him. He
still looks dazed, like he’s fighting for the logic of where he is and why, but
then he lifts his head, and meets Shizuo’s gaze, and Shizuo can feel the
momentary panic drain out of him as Izaya’s attention comes into focus on his
face.
“What--” Izaya starts, but whatever he was going to say cuts off as Shinra
steps in at Shizuo’s elbow to push at the dark hair falling across his
forehead. Izaya’s head turns to the force, his focus pushed aside as quickly as
Shinra shoves at his head; Shizuo can see him blink hard, like he’s lost his
bearings again and is struggling to reorient himself.
“I thought you had passed out,” Shizuo says, relief dragging tension from his
throat and sapping it from his words at once. “Are you okay?”
“Here.” That’s Shinra, not Izaya, and he pushes hard at Izaya’s head to catch
Shizuo’s attention. He’s holding the other’s hair back from his forehead to
leave the skin clear for the light, and Shizuo can see the injury even before
Shinra’s fingers trail across the swelling against Izaya’s temple, where a
bruise so deep it’s only just starting to rise into shades of blue is visible.
“They must have hit him before you got there.”
Izaya frowns, but he doesn’t try to turn his head away from Shinra’s touch.
“That hurts.”
“What happened?” Shizuo demands, looking back to the half-focused color in
Izaya’s eyes as his fingers tighten against the other’s shoulder, as his whole
body strains into the adrenaline of renewed panic. “What did they do to you,
Izaya?”
Izaya cuts his gaze sideways, his mouth dragging onto the weight of that frown
as his eyes focus on Shizuo; he looks irritated, like he’s frustrated by
Shizuo’s concern, but his gaze has all the edge it usually does, and that’s far
more comfort than otherwise. “He hit me,” Izaya informs them, his gaze sliding
away to fix on the far wall again. “Izumii knocked me out on the street and
took me to wherever that place was. He broke my finger and then Nakura
dislocated the other two and then you came through the doorway like a hero.” He
looks sideways again, his eyes dark on anger as he meets Shizuo’s gaze. “Do you
want me to review the rest of it, too, or can you remember that on your own?”
“You were knocked out?” Shinra cuts in. He’s frowning at Izaya’s head, his
expression intent in a way that prickles the beginnings of concern back down
Shizuo’s spine. He’s not sure he’s ever seen Shinra so focused before. “How
long?”
“I don’t know.” Izaya’s glaring sideways without trying to turn his head, his
frown fixed hard at his mouth. “I was unconscious.”
“Celty,” Shinra says, and even that sounds distracted, like Shinra can’t spare
the attention to give Celty his usual exuberant attention. “What time did you
find Izaya’s knife on the sidewalk?”
“It wasn’t long after that,” Shizuo volunteers. His fingers are tightening at
Izaya’s shoulder as if the pressure can keep him safe now, can chase off the
possible danger of the bruise rising at his temple through sheer force. “I
probably found them ten minutes later.”
“Hm.” Shinra looks sideways to consider the message Celty is holding out for
him to read. “What time did you run into Izumii?”
“I’m not sure,” Izaya says, his frown fading a little with concentration. “A
quarter after eight, probably.”
“He was out for at least twenty minutes.” Shinra look back to the bruise again
and frowns focus at it. Shizuo can’t get any kind of a read on his expression,
either panic or calm either one. “Definitely concussed, though it’ll be hard to
check for dizziness and disorientation until the pain meds wear off.” He draws
his hand away to let Izaya’s hair fall back over the shadow of the bruise
across his skin. “Did he have trouble walking on your way over here?”
“No, not that he let me see.” Izaya flinches as if from a blow, his gaze
sliding away from Shizuo’s to fix on the wall again. “Should we take him to the
hospital?”
“No,” Izaya snaps. “It’s fine.”
“He’ll probably be fine,” Shinra says, sounding sincere enough that it undoes
some of the panicky tension along Shizuo’s spine and lets his fingers unclench
from the hold he has at Izaya’s shoulder. “He should have someone keep an eye
on him tonight, though.”
Shizuo doesn’t have to think about his answer for that. “I’ll do it. I’ll stay
the night at his place.”
“Hey.” Izaya’s voice is sharp, cracking like a gunshot into the air; when
Shizuo looks back Izaya’s glaring at him. When he speaks his voice has the
sharp edge of a blade. “Who said I wanted to be looked after?”
Shinra starts to answer: “It’s a matter of--”
“It doesn’t matter,” Shizuo says, without turning his head or sparing any
attention at all for what Shinra was about to offer as response. Izaya’s still
glaring at him, vicious self-sufficiency tight along his shoulders under
Shizuo’s grip; but his stare is hazy with the bruise at his temple, and his
broken finger is still slack against the arm of the chair, and Shizuo has no
intention at all of leaving Izaya to take care of himself this time. “I’m
taking you home and I’m not leaving until you’re okay.”
Izaya stares at him for a moment. There’s complete silence for a breath, no
motion but that of his throat working on a swallow; then: “I see,” he says, his
voice taut on some unreadable strain. “So my opinion doesn’t matter?”
It’s not anger behind Izaya’s eyes. Shizuo isn’t sure what exactly it is; it
looks a little like a threat, more like a dare, most of all like a plea, like
he’s hanging on Shizuo’s response and hoping for the right one. Shizuo isn’t
sure what it is Izaya wants from him, doesn’t know what the correct reply would
be; so he does what he’s always done, does the only thing he can do, and gives
Izaya an honest answer.
“Not this time,” he says.
Izaya doesn’t hesitate at all. “Fine,” he says, and leans back in the chair,
his motion sliding his shoulder free of Shizuo’s hold. His eyes are still dark,
his gaze still focused; but then he smiles, and tips his head to the side to
knock the expression off-center, and Shizuo can feel relief shudder down his
spine even before Izaya says “I suppose I’ll let you have your way this time,”
with some suggestion of his usual purr on his voice.
Shizuo doesn’t push for more. It’s enough to have Izaya smiling at him, even if
the expression is weak and even if his face is still bloodless with the
lingering hurt of his injured hand; Shinra is looking to where Celty is
bringing more medical supplies from the other room, and reaching for Izaya’s
wrist with as much care as even Shizuo could hope for, and all that’s left for
Shizuo to do is to move out of the way so Shinra can do what he needs to to
realign the broken bones of Izaya’s finger. He lets Izaya’s shoulder go so he
can step to the side, but he doesn’t go far, just moves enough to come around
the corner of the chair and sit on the floor alongside Izaya. He’s close enough
to touch, if Izaya wanted to reach out for him, but Shizuo doesn’t wait; he
reaches out on his own, taking the initiative to close his hand gently around
the angle of Izaya’s unhurt left hand, to catch the fragile elegance of the
other’s fingers inside the protection of his hold. For a moment Izaya’s hand is
slack in Shizuo’s, his fingers unresisting and passive to the weight of the
other’s touch; and then Shizuo tightens his grip, just enough to press Izaya’s
fingers closer together, and Izaya’s thumb shifts in response, sliding against
the line of Shizuo’s pinky before settling into place just over his knuckle.
The friction is warm, glows comfort out into Shizuo’s body and tenses affection
around his heart, and Shizuo doesn’t look away from the comfort of Izaya’s hand
safe in his.
***** Promise *****
Izaya’s house is very quiet at night.
It’s late enough by the time they arrive that this isn’t a big surprise; Kururi
and Mairu are both asleep when they came in the front door, with their bedroom
door shut against the dim glow of light from the entryway, and when Shizuo
jerked his head in silent question towards the door Izaya had shaken his head
and taken the lead up the stairs for Shizuo to follow. He’s less steady on his
feet now than he tried to appear on the way to Shinra’s apartment; Shizuo can
see Izaya leaning hard against the banister railing as he makes his way up the
stairs, and his steps are so slow Shizuo catches up with him before his even
halfway to the landing. Shizuo doesn’t say anything, just reaches to catch a
steadying hold against Izaya’s right elbow, and Izaya glances sideways at him,
raising an eyebrow as he murmurs “You do worry too much, you know.” But he
doesn’t shake Shizuo off, and doesn’t stop moving up the stairs, and Shizuo
follows at the pace Izaya’s slow steps set and keeps his hold on the way down
the hall to the other’s room. It’s not until they’re inside that he lets go,
and then only because Izaya tugs his sleeve free so he can reach for the
lightswitch; besides, there’s only a few feet from the door to the bed, and
Izaya is crossing them without waiting for Shizuo.
“You should change your shirt,” Izaya suggests as he turns to sit at the edge
of the bed before starting to work his jacket off his shoulders. “Unless you
find bloodstained clothes more conducive to sleep than I do.”
Shizuo looks down at his vest, left unbuttoned over the ragged tear in his
shirt and the smear of red dried nearly to brown staining the white. “Oh. Yeah,
I guess I should.” He pulls the vest off immediately, folding it with the damp
side in before tossing it over the back of a chair; he’s halfway down the
buttons on his shirt before he realizes he has nothing to change into and
pauses.
“Check the bottom dresser drawer,” Izaya suggests from the bed. He’s not
looking at Shizuo; he has his head bowed instead, is smoothing the fur cuff of
his coat with more care than the action requires as he lays it across the foot
of the bed. “There should be some t-shirts that are big enough to fit you.”
“Oh,” Shizuo says. “Thanks.” He looks back down to his buttons to unfasten what
is left of them and shrug off his shirt to join the vest; his undershirt he
leaves on while he moves across the floor to the dresser indicated. The room is
far cleaner than he remembers it being in high school; there’s nothing on the
floor at all, and none of the familiar clutter of homework over the desk. But
for the bloodstained fabric of Shizuo’s clothes tossed over the back of the
chair the room could be a set for a magazine photograph, with all the
appearance of belonging and none of the actuality. It’s like Izaya barely lives
here at all, like the room itself is serving as proof that he spends all his
free time out wandering the city; it makes Shizuo’s chest tighten
uncomfortably, makes him flinch through another image of Izaya alone to face
the dangers his pursuits lead him into. He’s frowning when he pulls open the
dresser drawer to go through the shirts he’s never seen Izaya wear; it’s not
until he’s chosen one at random and shaken the folds out of it that he can let
some of his retroactive stress go. There’s nothing he can do about it now that
he’s not already doing, and it’s not going to happen again, he’s already
decided that much himself. He catches at the edge of his torn and bloodstained
undershirt and pulls it up and over his head so he can toss it to join his
other clothes, and when he turns around, Izaya is watching him.
There’s nothing particularly notable about the other’s expression. He’s sitting
across the sheets of the bed without bothering to pull them back, and he has
his legs crossed in front of him and his splinted hand cradled to safety in his
lap; but he’s watching Shizuo with complete attention, his eyes dark and
unblinking as he stares at the other, and Shizuo feels a shiver of self-
consciousness run over his bare skin as if he can feel the weight of Izaya’s
gaze like a physical touch.
The new t-shirt is in his hands. It would be a matter of seconds to drag it
over his head, to settle the thin barrier of fabric between his chest and
shoulders and Izaya’s stare; but Izaya’s gaze flickers up, his eyes meet
Shizuo’s, and for a moment Shizuo doesn’t move at all, just stares back at the
attention dark behind Izaya’s lashes while his skin flickers itself to
electricity all over his body.
“Do you need to change?” he asks, still with the shirt in his hands and Izaya’s
focus fixed on his face. “You’re not going to be very comfortable in jeans.”
“No,” Izaya says. His voice is level and unflinching; he doesn’t look away.
“I’m not supposed to stay asleep for very long, right? It’ll be easier to wake
up this way.”
“Okay,” Shizuo agrees without arguing the point. His heart is pounding hard in
his chest; he wonders if Izaya has noticed. He wonders if Izaya’s skin is as
flushed-hot as his own feels. He keeps looking at the other for a moment, feels
the space between them going tense with unstated understanding; and then Izaya
blinks, and his attention slides away from Shizuo’s face and across his
shoulder instead, and Shizuo takes a breath and moves to pull the shirt over
his head at last. He can feel his shoulders flex with the motion, can feel the
whole of his back shift as he’s never noticed it before, like he can feel the
weight of Izaya’s attention as if the other’s hands are pressed flush against
his spine and sliding across his skin in sync with his motion. He tugs the
shirt down over his chest, shrugs against the too-tight fabric over his
shoulders, and by the time he turns back around any evidence of the heat
rippling through him has faded to at least plausible deniability.
Izaya’s lying face-down across the bedsheets, now, his fixed consideration
apparently given over while Shizuo was distracted in getting himself reasonably
clothed and easing the taut edge of want from his veins. He has his left arm
under his head in place of a pillow, his right hand resting with painful care
across the bed next to him; he looks like he’s watching his splinted fingers
instead of Shizuo, but he speaks as Shizuo comes forward without turning his
head to acknowledge the other’s approach. “That shirt barely fits you, you
know.”
Shizuo can feel his cheeks flush with self-consciousness. “I know,” he says,
stepping in alongside the bed and dropping to sit on the floor next to where
Izaya is lying over the sheets. “It’s the biggest one you have.”
“I’m never letting you borrow my clothes,” Izaya says, sounding a little bit
dreamy and mostly amused. “They’ll never fit me right after you stretch them
out.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, feeling himself starting to smile in spite of
himself as Izaya’s mouth tugs on a hint of amusement as they watch each other.
“They’d fit me better if you weren’t so skinny.”
“That’s a very compelling point,” Izaya deadpans. “I’ll get right on that,
Shizuo.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo says. “Grow a couple inches too, while you’re at it.”
“Your wish is my command,” Izaya tells him, his mouth still clinging to the
edge of a smile. He shifts his arm and stretches out with his injured hand;
Shizuo tenses, about to tell him to stop, but when Izaya bumps his shoulder
it’s with his unhurt index finger, just to trace against the seam of the shirt
to the curve of the collar against Shizuo’s neck. His gaze trails the movement
of his hand, his lashes dipping as his thumb catches to slide just inside the
line of Shizuo’s collar, and Shizuo doesn’t look away from the hazy attention
behind the shadowed color of Izaya’s eyes. He looks dazed, almost dreamy, and
Shizuo is fairly sure that’s at least partially due to the pain medication
lacing the other’s veins but he doesn’t flinch away, and even when Izaya blinks
back into focus on his face Shizuo doesn’t look away from the other’s gaze.
There’s possibility hanging in the air, the force of years of unvoiced
affection fitting into the handful of inches between them; but Izaya’s
blinking, and he’s drawing his touch back, and Shizuo doesn’t reach out to
catch his hand to hold it still.
“You’re going to wake me up in an hour?” Izaya asks, sounding like he’s halfway
to sleep already, or maybe just dazed past the point of clear speech.
“Yeah,” Shizuo confirms. “I’ll stay awake.”
“You had better,” Izaya tells him. “I’d hate to fall into a coma because you
dozed off on the job.”
Shizuo huffs the very beginning of a laugh; it’s the best he can muster under
the circumstances, with his whole body aching with exhaustion and his chest
still tight on relief and concern in equal parts. “I won’t,” he promises. He
leans back to rest his shoulders against the wall behind him, to settle himself
comfortably for a long night of watchfulness instead of rest. “Go to sleep,
Izaya. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
The words feel like a vow on his lips.
***** Space *****
“The bedroom’s on the second level,” Izaya says, taking the lead around a
corner as they move through downtown Ikebukuro. “And then there’s space for a
couch and a workspace and a kitchen on the main floor.”
“Uh huh,” Shizuo says to Izaya’s shoulders, making no more effort to keep the
skepticism from his voice than the grin from his face. “And a host of maids to
wait on you hand and foot as needed, right?”
“Just one.” Izaya tips his head to look back over his shoulder; his smile
flashes bright in the afternoon sunlight and catches to flecks of red behind
the dark of his eyes. “And only once a week to keep things tidy.” He looks
forward again, skipping ahead by a pair of steps as if his energy is running
too high to allow for more sedate forward motion. “I’ll have you to look after
me otherwise.”
“I’m your bodyguard, not your valet,” Shizuo informs the sharp angle of Izaya’s
shoulders under his jacket. “Unless my responsibilities expanded without you
telling me?”
“I thought you’d be happy to hear it,” Izaya says. “You’ve been trying to
mother me since we were in middle school, after all.”
“Only because you’re incapable of looking after yourself,” Shizuo tells him.
Izaya hums thoughtfully. “You know, Shizu-chan, of the two of us--”
“Don’t call me that.”
“--Of the two of us, I’m the one who is now in possession of a living space
outside my parents’ roof.” Izaya pivots on a heel sharply enough that his
jacket catches and flares around him; his head tips to the side, his smile tugs
hard at the corner of his mouth. “Doesn’t that make me the more capable one
here?”
“Only if you actually own this fabled apartment,” Shizuo tells him. “We’ve been
going in circles, when are you going to admit you’re lying and let us go get
some lunch?”
“I’m not lying,” Izaya says. “I would never lie to my best friend.”
“You so absolutely--”
“Here,” Izaya says, turning sharply again without looking to face one of the
gates lining the sidewalk they’ve been walking down. Shizuo blinks and looks
up, his attention bringing the previously-ignored building into clarity as what
appears to be an apartment complex. “This is me.”
It definitely looks expensive. The building is surrounded by offices, the sides
rising high enough to imply the expense Izaya has been bragging about all
morning. Shizuo can see the glint of sunlight off windows, the reflection of
the light turning the transparent glass to the privacy of a mirror for the
occupants; and Izaya is stepping forward to push open the gate left-handed as
he reaches into his pocket with the right. He pauses on the front pathway,
looking back over his shoulder with that smirk still clinging to his lips; he’s
still holding the gate open, his arm drawn out into an elegant line as if he’s
posing for an audience that doesn’t exist. “Coming, Shizuo?”
“You don’t live here,” Shizuo says, but he’s stepping forward anyway, reaching
to catch the weight of the gate from Izaya as he moves. Izaya lets his fingers
slide away, holding to the curve of his smile as he turns towards the front
doors of the building’s lobby, and Shizuo follows him as the gate swings shut
behind them. “This is ridiculous, you can’t possibly make enough money to live
here.”
“I’m wounded,” Izaya says without turning around as they pass through the front
doors and into the lobby. “Did you think I was risking my safety and well-being
on a regular basis for something less than this?”
“Yes,” Shizuo says immediately. “You do risky things all the time just to make
me worry.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums. The elevator beeps its arrival as the metal doors slide open
and Izaya steps into the space. “That is a benefit.” Shizuo follows him in and
Izaya reaches out with his left hand to push the buttons for one of the topmost
floors. “You don’t carry quite that much weight in my life decisions, though.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes instead of answering. The elevator doors slide shut on
them, the machinery whirs softly into action; the acceleration is so smooth
Shizuo can barely feel it. Izaya looks perfectly comfortable at the other
corner of the elevator, as if this is the dozenth and not the first time he’s
been here, and for just a moment Shizuo’s distrust flickers and tries to form
into sincere consideration of the present possibility.
“You don’t actually live here,” he says. “Do you?”
Izaya tips his head to meet Shizuo’s gaze, his eyelashes dipping heavy over his
stare; but he just smiles instead of answering, like he’s holding a secret
behind the curve of his mouth, and then the doors start to slide open and he’s
unfolding from the corner to take the lead down the hallway with that same
self-confident stride. Shizuo follows, his pulse coming faster on uncertainty
that rises higher with every step they take, until by the time Izaya stops in
front of one of the doors Shizuo is hardly surprised at all by the shine of the
key the other pulls from the pocket of his coat.
“Oh my god,” he says as Izaya fits the key into the lock and turns to unlatch
the heavy click of the deadbolt. “You actually do live here.”
“And it only took you all day to believe me,” Izaya says. He frees the key from
the door to replace it in his pocket and pushes the door open with his other
hand; when he turns back it’s to cut a smile at Shizuo before gesturing
expansively towards the open entrance. “Be my guest.” Shizuo looks at the angle
of Izaya’s arm, the tilt of his head, the curve of his smile; and then he
turns, and steps forward, and comes through the doorway of Izaya’s new
apartment.
It’s enormous. It’s the first thing Shizuo notices, even with the array of
pristine furniture laid out in aesthetically appealing orientations around the
space; the whole bottom floor is expansive, open to his view in a way entirely
unlike the twists and turns of the hallways in his family’s home. The windows
are striking as well; they fill a full wall of the apartment in a sleek line of
glass that leaves the glitter of the city as open to view as the blue of the
clear sky bright overhead. There are bookshelves lining one whole wall, a
staircase curving up towards the promised second story, and everything Shizuo
looks at is clean and beautiful and as pristinely unlived-in as an expensive
hotel room.
“Oh my god,” he says again from the edge of the entryway where he’s stopped. “I
don’t fucking believe this.”
“I told you I was telling the truth,” Izaya purrs from behind him.
“That wasn’t going to make me listen to you.” Shizuo toes off his shoes without
looking away from the stunning view in front of him and takes a step forward
into Izaya’s apartment with his attention still fixed on the room. “This is
unbelievable.”
“Oh good.” The door shifts and swings back into place behind Shizuo as Izaya
follows him into the space. “If it’s the apartment you object to and not my own
trustworthiness my injured feelings may someday recover.”
“As if you have feelings at all.” Shizuo steps across the space of the room,
moving towards the shine of sunlight glinting off the enormous windows in front
of him as if he’s being pulled by a leash. “How do you keep these clean?”
“I pay someone.” Izaya sounds completely unconcerned, like he was expecting the
question and already had his answer ready to hand. “Or I will. I’ve only been
moved in for a day and a half, Shizuo, I haven’t yet managed to completely
sully everything in sight.”
Shizuo looks back at that, his attention pulled away from the view out of
Izaya’s apartment windows and back to the other himself. Izaya’s still standing
by the door, leaning alongside the entryway with the tension of a smile caught
at the corner of his mouth; he looks a little bit amused and mostly pleased, as
if he’s gaining as much satisfaction from watching Shizuo in his apartment as
from the apartment itself. It makes Shizuo smile, aware even as the expression
breaks across his face that it looks softer than usual, and Izaya’s smile goes
wider in response, catching tension at the very corners of his eyes and
skipping Shizuo’s heartbeat on affection before he can even consider trying to
restrain it.
He looks away again, back across the ridiculous span of the apartment, and
moves forward towards the rows of bookshelves alongside the desk. “I didn’t
know you had this much stuff.” The books are unfamiliar when he draws close
enough to read them, to touch his fingers to uncreased titles and undented
spines that never existed in the narrow space of Izaya’s old bedroom. “Where
were you keeping all this?”
“I bought it.” Izaya’s still watching Shizuo when the other looks back at him,
still leaning against the doorway to the apartment. He has his hands clasped
behind his back; the position makes him look strangely uncertain, as if he’s
aged backwards by a handful of years to a middle schooler more insecure in
himself than Shizuo has ever known Izaya to be. “I had it delivered and
unpacked before I moved in.” One of his shoulders comes up into a careless
shrug, as if the furnishings of his life are wholly unimportant. “Most of this
is as new to me as it is to you.”
Shizuo frowns. “That must be weird,” he says. When he looks up he can see the
railing running along the second floor, can see the shadows of what must be the
loft bedroom Izaya mentioned on the way over. He wonders if the bedroom is any
more recognizable than the rest of the apartment, if any of the furniture he
remembers from Izaya’s room made the move to this enormous, sunbright space.
“Like you moved into a stranger’s home.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.” Izaya sounds careless, his words more sincere
than usual; when Shizuo looks back at him he’s still watching from his position
at the doorway. “I own it now, it’ll become familiar soon enough.” His hands
ease, his arms falling to his sides as his pose collapses into comfort, and
when he smiles it flashes to warmth behind his eyes for a moment. “Besides,
some things are still the same.”
Shizuo blinks. Izaya is still standing in the doorway, the room is still
overlarge and unfamiliar around them; but his words fall into the quiet like
stones into a pool, the ripples cast by the sound of his voice enough to undo
what Shizuo thought he saw in the surface. The new furniture, the enormous
windows, the echoing space; for just a moment all that fades away, and all
that’s left is an apartment caught around the two of them, Shizuo standing in
the middle of the room and Izaya gazing at him from the doorway with the
comfortable weight of his jacket -- the jacket Shizuo gave him -- wrapped
around his shoulders like a promise of what they have always been to each
other, like a sign of what they could become. The apartment belongs to Izaya,
doesn’t even deserve the title of home yet, with the crisp edges of newness
still on everything in the space; but for just a moment Shizuo takes a breath,
and lets his imagination print the taste of licorice into the catalog-clean
smell of the air, lets himself think about the smell of his cigarettes clinging
to the corners of the room instead of the clean cold of dustless walls.
It’s just a fantasy, and just for a moment; but Shizuo thinks making this
impersonal apartment a home would be easy to do, if he’s with Izaya.
***** Healed *****
It’s halfway through his first day that Shizuo decides that he isn’t cut out to
be a bodyguard.
It’s not that he lacks the ability. He certainly has the strength to offer any
kind of protection Izaya could need, and his reflexes are quick enough that he
could stop any kind of violence before it even approached sincerely life-
threatening. His reputation is some help too, he suspects; Shizuo saw the
flicker of shock in the stranger’s face when Izaya had waved a hand in Shizuo’s
direction and said “And of course you recognize Heiwajima-kun,” had seen the
widened eyes that said yes, he did better than spoken agreement would. Shizuo
doesn’t know if the other man would have been as polite with just Izaya,
suspects he certainly wouldn’t be as deliberately careful with his actions; but
that’s not what bothers him. What seemed easy enough in hypotheticals -- go
with Izaya in his wandering around the city to keep him safe from any of the
numerous groups who wish him ill -- is something else entirely when Shizuo is
standing in an enclosed room with nothing to do except watch Izaya maneuver
through a conversation and wonder if the next sentence is going to bring about
a sudden burst of violence. There’s no sign of it from the other man -- in fact
he seems to be spending as much time eying Shizuo as listening to what Izaya is
saying to him -- but Shizuo’s imagination is too vivid in this, and he spends
the entire quarter-hour they spend in the unfamiliar office going over possible
scenarios and trying to determine how badly Izaya might get hurt before Shizuo
could cross the distance to him. By the time Izaya is pushing to his feet and
offering a handshake and thanks for the conversation Shizuo’s shoulders are
cramping with the expectation of violence he’s been holding back, and it’s hard
for a moment to blink back visions of injury enough to believe that Izaya
really is completely unhurt in front of him. Izaya turns away from the man
still hunched into passivity in his chair, glances sideways at Shizuo as his
mouth quirks on a smile, and then says “Pleasure working with you,” in a
lilting chirp as he moves for the door. Shizuo follows in his wake, interposing
his shoulders between Izaya and the stranger; it’s not until he’s formed a wall
between the two of them that the adrenaline taut along his spine eases its grip
on his body, and not until the door clicks shut behind them that he can manage
a full breath of air again. Izaya keeps his lead down the hallway and out to
the front door leading onto the street, and it’s while Shizuo is stepping
through the entrance and out onto the sidewalk that he clears his throat to
speak.
“So,” he drawls, pulling the vowel long and lilting in a way that tenses
Shizuo’s shoulders against the teasing to come even before he hears what Izaya
is going to say. “Are you planning on terrifying everyone I work with into
submission before they even have the idea to do me any harm? Just for future
reference, you see.”
“I wasn’t--” Shizuo starts before cutting himself off from offering a denial
that they will both know is as good as a lie. “I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s not a surprise,” Izaya tells him, watching Shizuo sideways through the
fall of his hair as he visibly fights back a smile. “You didn’t look like there
was much conscious thought at all in your head. I didn’t know you could be that
threatening and still hold yourself back, I’m honestly impressed.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo growls, feeling his cheeks go hot as Izaya spills the bright
of a laugh into the autumn-cool air. He reaches into his pocket for his box of
cigarettes and fishes one free while his face is still burning with
embarrassment. “It’s not that I thought he was actually going to try something.
I was just thinking about the possibility.”
“You might as well have been shaking a fist in his face,” Izaya informs him.
“Do we need to give you time to calm down with a cigarette break before we go
in to keep you from terrifying all my clients?”
“I’m sorry,” Shizuo tells him, neither sounding nor feeling very sincere about
it. He pulls the lighter from his pocket and flicks it into flame, cupping his
hand around the heat to protect it from the wind as he lights the end of his
cigarette. “Give me a break, it’s my first time doing this. I’ll get better
with practice.”
“I hope so.” Izaya reaches out towards Shizuo’s face with his right hand; for a
moment Shizuo thinks he’s aiming to tug the cigarette away and leans back and
away in reflexive retreat. But Izaya’s fingers curl around his wrist instead,
skimming across the bare skin just past the cuff of the familiar uniform Shizuo
has gone on wearing out of habit rather than necessity, and when Shizuo’s hand
tips out in involuntary surrender to the other’s touch Izaya’s hand slides up
across his palm, his fingers trailing electricity over Shizuo’s skin for a
breathless moment. Shizuo’s fingers relax, his grip goes slack; and Izaya
closes his hold around the lighter and tugs the weight of it free of Shizuo’s
grasp with a flash of a smile to catch the sunlight and Shizuo’s attention at
once. “Though I guess if you intimidate my customers and put me out of my job
you’re preventing the danger that comes with it too.” He twists the lighter in
his fingers, braces his fingers against the side and catches his thumb at the
trigger to light a flicker of flame before the wind of their forward movement
gusts it out.
“Give that back,” Shizuo tells him, reaching out to make what he knows already
is a weak attempt at reclaiming the lighter. Izaya doesn’t even bother stepping
away; he just lifts it up over his head, still offering a smirk to go with the
sparkle of his gaze lingering at Shizuo’s face.
“I’m putting you on probation,” he declares, sliding his hand free when Shizuo
makes an attempt to catch his wrist and reclaim the glint of the lighter from
Izaya’s fingers. His skin is hot to the touch, as glowing-bright as if he’s
carrying fire under his skin as well as in his fingers, and Shizuo knows he
isn’t even making a plausible attempt at retrieving his property anymore and he
doesn’t care, not when Izaya is grinning as brightly as he is. “You’ll have to
prove yourself as an effective bodyguard if you want to keep your position,
Shizu-chan.”
“Or what, you’ll fire me?” Shizuo asks. “And don’t call me that.”
“That’s right.” Izaya tosses the lighter from one hand to the other, summarily
ending Shizuo’s attempt at retrieving it before he slides it into the far
pocket of his jacket. Shizuo thinks he could probably drag it free by force if
he put his attention to it, but Izaya’s smiling as if he’s just won some
crucial victory and Shizuo can’t fight back the answering happiness glowing all
across his face. “You don’t want to miss out on all those hours you spend in my
fancy apartment, do you?”
“Like I wouldn’t be over all the time anyway,” Shizuo says, and reaches out to
ruffle a hand through Izaya’s hair. Izaya tips under the force, laughing as he
bumps hard against Shizuo’s side, and Shizuo has to fight back the urge to let
his arm fall around Izaya to hold the other close against him. He settles
instead for letting his hand catch at Izaya’s shoulder for a moment before
letting his arm fall, trailing his touch against the back of the other’s coat
as he goes. “You can barely feed yourself when I’m not around.”
“I do just fine, Shizuo,” Izaya tells him. He still has his hand in his pocket;
Shizuo thinks he might still be turning the lighter over in his fingers. “Let’s
go back and you can make me lunch.” Shizuo rolls his eyes at the assumption of
the statement, but he doesn’t offer any protest around the warm glow of
happiness in his chest.
Even if he looks for it, he can’t see any trace of awkwardness in the movement
of Izaya’s healed fingers.
***** Unfocused *****
Shizuo enjoys Izaya’s apartment.
It’s comfortable, spacious and airy in a way that belongs more on the cover of
a magazine than an actual space anyone he knows lives in. The thermostat is
turned up warm to combat the chill in the air that comes with the first
beginnings of winter, and the couch is bigger even than Shizuo’s bed and
comfortable with expensive softness. Shizuo thinks he might like to spend his
free time here just for that, even if it weren’t for the primary reason that
brings him across the city every morning and keeps him here until late in the
evening and sometimes through the nights, too, sleeping on the soft of that
couch with his vest as a blanket he doesn’t need against the warmth of the air.
Those nights are the best, he thinks, even if he lies awake for what feels like
hours listening to Izaya stirring through restless sleep alone in the bedroom
above and wakes to the first early rays of dawn breaking through the windows;
they might not grant him enough sleep, but they give him what is far more
valuable, an evening and a morning unbroken by the necessity for goodbyes or
greetings and the flash of Izaya’s grin almost as soon as he stirs. Shizuo
likes to pretend, sometimes, that he lives here in truth, that the space so
rapidly becoming familiar with each passing day is his as much as Izaya’s, that
there’s no need at all for them to ever be apart no matter how far into the
future he considers.
He’s thinking of that now, in the back of his head, while he lies on his
stomach and idly skims the pages of the manga volume he brought with him this
morning; the chill of outdoors has long since faded from his skin, until all
that is left when he breathes in is the suggestion of smoke in the air, the
print of his own cigarettes in the space of Izaya’s home as clear as the
everpresent tang of licorice the other carries on his skin. He’s hardly reading
the panels in front of him at all; his attention is elsewhere, lost in a half-
formed daydream of some reality sweeter even than this one, when Izaya’s voice
cuts sharply through his thoughts.
“I can’t believe you’re still reading manga,” he says, pitching his voice loud
so it carries clearly across the width of the living room from where he’s
sitting in front of his computer. “Isn’t that the same series you used to read
in middle school?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo says. It is -- he’s impressed Izaya remembered -- but he
doesn’t look up from the page to acknowledge this point, just keeps his gaze
fixed on the panels even though his attention is well and truly absent, now.
“What I do in my free time doesn’t affect you, stop complaining.”
“It matters when you’re taking over my apartment to do it,” Izaya informs him.
“Aren’t you old enough to have a place of your own by now?”
“Yeah.” Shizuo gives up on reading the chapter -- he’s lost all focus on it
anyway -- and looks sideways instead, turning his head to see the way Izaya is
watching him from across the distance of the apartment. Izaya’s eyes are dark
under his lashes, his smile taut at his lips; he has his elbow braced against
his desk and his head propped on his hand, as if there’s nothing more
entertaining for him to be watching than Shizuo. Shizuo lets his voice drop
into a growl, attempting a show of irritation he doesn’t feel. “I would, too,
if my employer actually paid me instead of just talking about it.”
“That’s harsh, Shizu-chan,” Izaya purrs. Shizuo rolls his eyes at the nickname
and looks back to the same manga page he’s been not-reading for minutes, now.
“When I’m practically giving you a place to live in exchange for the pleasure
of your company for a few hours a day, why would you need an apartment of your
own?”
Shizuo can feel his mouth tug onto a smile at this echo of his own thoughts,
feels the reassurance of the words like sunlight against the back of his neck.
He keeps looking down at the manga. “I dunno,” he says, letting the words drawl
long and teasing in his throat. “It’s just that my best friend won’t leave me
alone about it.”
“Aww,” Izaya says, sympathy heavy and feigning on the sound. “Sounds like a
jerk.”
Shizuo’s mouth drags onto a smile. “I know.” He looks back over; Izaya’s
leaning far back in his chair, now, and has one foot up against the edge of the
desk to rock himself idly back and forth. Shizuo catches the other’s gaze and
holds it as he continues. “He’s always been like this.”
“You should get yourself better friends,” Izaya says, and then, immediately,
before Shizuo can even reach for a protest: “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess holding
onto even one friend is doing well for a monster like you.”
Shizuo snorts amusement. “Are you back to that?” Izaya breaks into a laugh, his
expression lighting up into delighted entertainment as he kicks himself into a
spin, and Shizuo ducks his head back over his manga to half-hide the warmth of
the smile at his lips. He can hear the chair squeak as Izaya gets to his feet,
can hear the soft sound of the other’s footsteps padding towards him, but he
doesn’t look up, just listens to the tells of Izaya’s approach while gazing
blankly at the manga in front of him.
“Of course I am.” Izaya lilts the words like they’re some memorized poem,
something so often repeated they’ve taken on the rhythm of meaninglessness from
overuse. Shizuo can hear him coming closer, is bracing himself for fingers in
his hair or trailing against the line of his back; but when the touch comes
it’s at his pocket instead, a catch and drag that has his cigarettes sliding
free and in Izaya’s hold before Shizuo can react enough to turn and grab for
them. Izaya darts backwards and out of reach without looking where he’s going,
his steps carrying him around the edge of the coffee table and back to the far
side of the couch as Shizuo pushes himself up on his elbows; he’s grinning all
across his face, like laying claim to Shizuo’s cigarettes is some major victory
for him. “You don’t get to become human just because you’ve been behaving
yourself for a few months, you know.”
Shizuo frowns. “Give those back.”
“Hm.” Izaya drops his mouth into a pout of consideration, looking down at the
box as he pushes it open and slides a cigarette free with startling grace. The
box he throws at Shizuo without warning; Shizuo snatches it out of the air
reflexively, but Izaya is already catching his lips around the end of the
cigarette and speaking around the obstruction as he reaches into his pocket.
“You’ll need to find yourself a princess willing to kiss you in order to turn
you into a real human prince, Shizu-chan.”
“Stop calling me that,” Shizuo says, although the words lack any force to stand
against the distraction of Izaya’s lips pursed against the cigarette and the
lilt of his voice over a princess willing to kiss you, as if Shizuo cares at
all about the idea of kissing anyone but the person right in front of him. “And
don’t smoke my cigarettes.”
“You’re so pushy today,” Izaya says, pulling a lighter from his pocket and
flicking it open in the same gesture. The silver case is familiar, Shizuo’s not
surprised to see; he long since gave up any hope of keeping lighters to himself
when Izaya’s around. Izaya doesn’t look up at him; he keeps his gaze cast down
as he braces his free hand at the base of the cigarette to hold it steady as he
lifts the open flame to the paper. “What happened to your usual kindness and
generosity?”
“You started picking a fight,” Shizuo tells him, but his heart isn’t in the
retort. He’s caught by Izaya’s fingers instead, his attention tangling around
the shift of the other’s hold against the edges of the lighter printed over as
thoroughly with Izaya’s fingerprints as with Shizuo’s own. He can imagine the
fit of those fingers in his own, can imagine the slide of Izaya’s touch against
the back of his neck, through the weight of his hair, over the rush of his
pulse at the inside of his wrist. He wants to reach out, to slide the lighter
from Izaya’s grip, to replace the frictionless cool of the metal with the
warmth of his mouth, with the weight of his lips pressing to the line across
Izaya’s palm and catching damp against the individual joints of those delicate
fingers. He can feel the want flicker in his veins, can feel heat rising along
his spine as if he’s catching alight himself, as if the shift of Izaya’s
fingers is drawing fire into him as much as it is flaring the spark of the
lighter. Then there’s a flash of movement, the click of the lighter snapping
shut under Izaya’s touch, and a cloud of smoke in Shizuo’s face as Izaya
exhales, the haze blurring his too-clear vision as Izaya slides his hand and
the lighter back into his pocket. Shizuo blinks against the burn of the smoke
in his eyes, trying to clear his vision and focus his thoughts at once, and
Izaya creases his forehead in consideration, making a show of thought as he
brings the cigarette back to his mouth.
“Hm.” Izaya’s fingers brace against the cigarette, his lips purse against the
edge of it; he flutters his lashes as he takes an inhale, holding it for a long
moment before blowing it out in a curl of smoke into the air. Shizuo can feel
the desire to catch that smoke on his lips like a physical pressure against his
lungs. “These are terrible.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, reaching out to pull the cigarette away from
Izaya’s lips, or maybe to press his fingers to the soft pout of them instead,
he’s not sure which. Izaya lifts it away, holding it out of Shizuo’s reach as
he glances sideways through his lashes at the other. “You don’t even smoke, how
would you know?”
“Instinct,” Izaya tells him, his mouth curving around the taut of a smile as
his voice lilts into flirtatious amusement. “I can always count on you to have
terrible taste in everything.”
“Including friends, apparently.” Shizuo pushes against the couch to come up
onto his knees and give himself the added reach of height to make a grab for
the cigarette caught between Izaya’s fingers. Izaya laughs and leans back,
falling against the arm of the couch to keep his hand out of range of Shizuo’s
reach; the position makes an invitation of his body, leaves him angled into
languid elegance against the support. Shizuo’s throat goes tight on heat, his
breathing shapes itself around the beginnings of a groan, and when he reaches
out it’s to hold at Izaya’s shoulder, to pin the other still where he’s lying
as Shizuo leans in over him. The cigarette is still in Izaya’s fingers, and
it’s still the cigarette that Shizuo is reaching for; but for a moment they’re
pressed together, Shizuo’s weight bearing Izaya back against the couch to hold
him still while he makes an ungraceful attempt to reclaim the cigarette. His
fingers are catching at Izaya’s hand, sliding over the other’s wrist, but all
his attention is against the rhythm of Izaya’s breathing against him. For a
moment he can feel Izaya’s heartbeat in harmony with his own, for a breath he
can fill his lungs with the bite of licorice; and then he has the cigarette in
his fingers, and he’s pulling it free and falling back to collapse against the
couch while his pulse speeds itself into a frenzy of sudden adrenaline.
“Brat,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can think to offer with his
heart racing like it is and his whole body running electric on the heat of
Izaya pressed against him, on the feel of Izaya pinned back to the couch under
him. He brings the cigarette to his lips more on reflex than with intent; the
paper is faintly damp against his mouth when he takes an inhale. Shizuo
imagines he can feel a spark of heat still lingering from Izaya’s lips,
pretends he can taste a bittersweet edge to the smoke that has nothing to do
with nicotine, and when he glances at Izaya the other is staring at his mouth,
his lashes heavy over his eyes and his lips barely parted on distraction. He
looks unfocused, like he’s lost track of his surroundings in a way Shizuo has
never seen him do before, as if the familiar sight of Shizuo smoking has
somehow tripped his mental focus out-of-balance and he hasn’t brought it back
together yet.
Shizuo’s heart skips, his shoulders tense; when he speaks it’s gently, as
casually as he can to not chase away the brief sincerity of the moment with
acknowledgment. “Don’t take my stuff just to complain about it.” He takes an
inhale off the cigarette, holds the bitter heat of the smoke inside his chest
for a moment; and then he exhales, and lets the smoke escape into the air, and
Izaya blinks and catches a breath and comes back to himself all at once. The
softness in his eyes flickers, the give of his mouth tenses and vanishes, and
then he’s himself once more, quirking the teasing curve of his lips at Shizuo
and with his eyes sparkling too bright for any hope of pinning them down to
honesty. But Shizuo has electricity rushing through his veins, and licorice
bitter as smoke on his lips, and even Izaya can’t hide forever.
When he’s ready to let himself be caught, Shizuo will be waiting for him.
***** Pressure *****
“Hurry up,” Izaya calls back from the door to the lobby of his apartment
building. “Can’t you finish that inside?”
“Not until we get to your room,” Shizuo tells him. “The halls are no-smoking,
you know.”
“No one’s here anyway,” Izaya informs him. “No one will notice and even if they
did they wouldn’t know it was you.”
“It’s the principle of it,” Shizuo says. “It’ll only take a minute.”
“You’re the worst bodyguard,” Izaya says. He has his arms crossed over his
chest and his shoulders hunched in; when he huffs a breath Shizuo can see it
cloud to steam in the winter chill of the air. “You chase off my customers and
then you waste my valuable time, isn’t that the opposite of what you’re meant
to do?”
“I don’t know,” Shizuo says. “You’re the one who hired me, you tell me.”
“I am,” Izaya says. “I’m telling you right now. You’re terrible at your work,
Shizu-chan.”
“Don’t call me that,” Shizuo tells him. “Or I’ll stay out here for another
cigarette too.”
“I’ll leave you alone then,” Izaya says, but he doesn’t push the nickname and
he doesn’t leave; he stays where he is, leaning against the support of the
doorway with his jacket pulled tight around his shoulders. Shizuo looks over at
him but Izaya’s not watching him; he has his eyes shut and his head tipped
against the frame of the door like he’s drowsing or too tired to keep it up.
His mouth is soft, is dipping into a faint frown of discomfort; as Shizuo
watches he shifts his shoulders like he’s trying to get comfortable, or trying
to hunch in closer against the bite of the wind. It doesn’t feel that cold to
Shizuo -- he’s not even wearing a jacket, and his hands are as warm as the rest
of him -- but there’s a flash of guilt at the back of his thoughts as he looks
at Izaya waiting for him in the doorway.
“Fine,” he says, looking down so he can fish the envelope out of his pocket.
There’s still almost half of his cigarette left but he doesn’t bother taking
another drag; he just stubs out the ember against the inside of the envelope
and lets what remains of the cigarette fall into it before he replaces it in
his pocket. “Let’s go inside.”
“Finally,” Izaya groans, and turns to retreat to the inside of the lobby while
Shizuo is still striding up the pathway to the front of the building. Shizuo
catches the door before it swings back to hit Izaya’s shoulder and Izaya moves
straight towards the elevators, only reaching out long enough to push the
button on the control panel before returning his arms to their tense cross over
his chest. The doors slide open and Shizuo follows Izaya inside, reaching out
to push the button for their floor before Izaya moves.
Shizuo clears his throat as the elevator jerks into motion to pull them up over
the intervening floors to Izaya’s room. “Sorry,” he says, watching Izaya
sideways from under the weight of his hair. “I didn’t realize you were cold.
You should have said something.”
“I’m not cold,” Izaya tells him without unfolding the protective angle of his
arms over his chest. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“We could have taken a taxi,” Shizuo tells him. Izaya’s head is ducked forward,
his hair is falling off the back of his neck; Shizuo’s fingers itch to stretch
out and press warmth against the curve of bare skin over the soft fur of the
other’s collar. “It would have saved us a walk.”
“I’m fine,” Izaya says again, without looking at Shizuo. “I just didn’t want to
wait with you looking like a delinquent in front of my apartment building.”
Shizuo’s mouth twitches on amusement. “But you don’t mind walking downtown with
me looking like a delinquent?”
“Of course not.” The doors open and Izaya steps out into the hallway without
hesitating to make sure Shizuo is following him. “You looking intimidating is
exactly what you’re supposed to do as my bodyguard.”
“Good to know,” Shizuo says, trailing Izaya down the hall to the door of the
other’s apartment. “Anything else in my job description you want to tell me?”
“I’ll mention it as it comes up,” Izaya says, glancing up through his hair at
Shizuo as he unlocks the door to the apartment. There’s a smile tugging at the
corner of his mouth; Shizuo just catches a glimpse of it before Izaya is
pushing the door open and stepping into the entryway. “There’s nothing you need
to worry about until I tell you to.”
“Thanks,” Shizuo drawls, following Izaya inside and pushing the door shut
behind them. “It’s always good to know what my job responsibilities entail.”
“Surprises keep things interesting,” Izaya informs him, slipping his shoes off
at the edge of the tiled entryway before shrugging his jacket off his shoulders
and hanging it at the hooks along the wall. “I’d think you could appreciate
that.”
“Not like it makes a difference.” Shizuo toes his shoes off alongside Izaya’s
and comes forward to follow the other towards the couch. “You won’t tell me
anyway.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums. “You know me too well.” He steps over the back of the couch
rather than taking the time to come around the corner; Shizuo takes the longer
route, approaching to sit next to Izaya as the other draws his feet up next to
him and leans back against the support of the cushions. Izaya tips sideways as
soon as Shizuo sits down, his shoulder pressing hard against the other’s, and
Shizuo lets a smile tug at the corner of his mouth as he works his arm free to
drape along the back of the couch over Izaya’s shoulders.
“Do you want something to eat?” he asks. “I could make ramen or we could go out
to get something.”
“No,” Izaya says, his voice half-muffled against Shizuo’s shoulder. “I don’t
want to go outside again today.”
“You don’t have to go anywhere for me to make you dinner,” Shizuo tells him.
“You can stay right here and I’d bring it to you, you don’t even have to move.”
Izaya makes a faint sound into Shizuo’s shirt, protest audible if incoherent.
“No,” he says without lifting his head. When he moves it’s to kick his legs out
over the length of the couch and press harder against the support Shizuo
offers. “I’m not hungry.”
“Okay,” Shizuo says. He’s tipping sideways over the cushions, has to reach out
to brace himself with his free hand; Izaya is leaning hard against him, like
he’s using Shizuo himself in place of the support of the couch under them.
Shizuo lets his hand slide off the back of the couch, lets his fingers trail
carefully over the angle of Izaya’s far shoulder and the dark soft of his
shirt. It’s chill to the touch, radiating against the warmth of the room like
Izaya is producing cold instead of heat in his veins. “You really are cold. Do
you want a blanket or something?”
“‘M fine,” Izaya mumbles. He pushes harder against Shizuo’s shoulder, like he’s
trying to knock the other back against the couch cushions; when he lifts a hand
it’s to reach around the other’s waist, to catch Shizuo in the loop of his arm
as he sighs against the other’s shirt. “It’s nice like this.”
Shizuo’s mouth twitches, tension catching to the beginning of a laugh at his
lips as his skin flushes warm at the touch of Izaya’s arm. “Are you using me as
a heater?”
“Mm,” Izaya hums. “You’re warm.”
Shizuo smiles down at the dark of Izaya’s head against his shoulder. “Alright,”
he says, and lets his arm slide off the back of the couch entirely to weight
around Izaya’s shoulders. Izaya doesn’t protest the motion, and he doesn’t pull
away when Shizuo tightens his hold and lets his bracing hand go so he can tip
back to lie against the couch cushions under them; he follows as fast as Shizuo
moves, twisting to fall against the inside angle of the couch so he ends up
half atop the cushions and half against Shizuo. Shizuo lets his hand against
Izaya’s shoulder shift, slides it down by an inch to weight against the dip
between the other’s shoulderblades instead, and Izaya lets him without trying
to shift free of the weight. Shizuo’s heart is racing, his breathing catching
fast with every breath he takes so close to Izaya’s hair; he’s sure Izaya can
tell, sure his reaction must be abundantly obvious, but Izaya doesn’t say
anything, doesn’t so much as shift to acknowledge any sense of self-
consciousness about how close they’re pressed.
Shizuo takes a breath and reaches for something suitably off-hand to say. “Is
this part of my job description too?” he asks, the words sounding something
close to casual from what he can tell past the ringing of heat in his ears.
“Heat source as well as bodyguard?”
“Of course,” Izaya says without lifting his head from where it’s pillowed at
Shizuo’s shoulder. His breathing is very warm against Shizuo’s shirt. “When you
keep me out in winter until I’m half-frozen, it’s only fair that you do your
part to prevent hypothermia.”
“You were cold,” Shizuo says. “You should have told me, I’d have gotten us a
taxi when we were done.”
Izaya lifts his hand from Shizuo’s waist and waves it vaguely through the air
to dismiss this offer. “If I wanted a taxi I’d have called one myself,” he says
as he lets his arm fall back across Shizuo’s body. “Shut up and do your job.”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “Okay,” he says, and falls silent to leave just the sound
of his breathing catching with Izaya’s in the heated air of the apartment.
Izaya stops shivering within five minutes, and by the time ten have passed
Shizuo can feel his skin prickling into sweat from the too-much heat of someone
else pressing against him; but he doesn’t say anything, and Izaya doesn’t move,
and even after a half hour has gone by neither of them has shifted to do
anything more productive with the afternoon.
Shizuo thinks he’d be happy to stay like this for days, if Izaya wanted him.
***** Irresistible *****
Christmas brings snow with it.
Shizuo is still at his parent’s house that morning, lingering over a cup of tea
while Kasuka talks about his newest acting role with as little enthusiasm as if
he’s talking about an assignment at school; their mother is enraptured, their
father amused, and Shizuo himself is smiling about Kasuka’s most recent in a
series of successes, as pleased about his brother’s blossoming career as if
it’s his own. There’s a part of his mind thinking of Izaya, as it always is,
turning over ideas for the afternoon and wondering if Izaya will want to work
or if he could be talked into going out for a dinner Shizuo could call a date,
at least in the space of his own mind; and then Kasuka says, “Ah,” cutting off
the flow of his story without any hesitation at all. “It’s snowing.” Everyone
turns at once, looking towards the window where, indeed, there are a few pale
flakes clinging to the sill before melting to liquid; and Kasuka’s story is
dropped for the day, as forgotten by the speaker himself as by the rest of
them. There’s a stir of excitement through the room, all four of them
gravitating towards the window for a moment of startled appreciation; and
Shizuo looks up at the clouded sky, and the drift of snowflakes falling to
speckle the ground, and says “I’m going to see Izaya” before going to track
down a coat to hold off the chill of the freezing air.
It’s a pleasant walk. The streets are full of people, some dressed for the
weather and some not, all looking up to smile at the sky with the wide-eyed
appreciation that always comes with the first snow of the year. It makes Shizuo
smile to see, if the goal of his trek wasn’t enough to do so on its own; by the
time he’s emerging from the elevator to make his way down the hall to Izaya’s
apartment he’s warm straight through with happiness, appreciation of the
weather and anticipation of the afternoon combining to leave him glowing with
enthusiasm by the time he knocks on the door. Izaya answers in jeans and his
usual thin shirt; the only concession to the weather he has made appears to be
turning the thermostat up by a handful of degrees, until the air inside his
apartment melts the flakes of ice in Shizuo’s hair and the collar of his coat
on contact. Shizuo’s nearly sweating by the time he gets his jacket off and
hung alongside the door; but the warmth is pleasant as the mild effort of his
walk fades, and leaves him feeling drowsy with comfort, and Izaya goes to make
them a pot of tea to share while Shizuo sprawls across the entire length of the
couch to smoke a cigarette. It feels domestic, the way it might if they had
woken up together, if this were their home instead of only Izaya’s apartment,
and Shizuo lets himself daydream about it, indulges himself in a Christmas
fantasy of living with Izaya, of being the one to pull Izaya’s attention to the
first snowfall of the year on the other side of their living room window, of
having the whole of a lifetime together in front of them instead of the
restricted time of a single day’s visit. It lasts him through the whole process
of Izaya making the tea and his own deliberate work smoking through the length
of a cigarette, until finally he has to stir himself to sit up so he can stub
out the end of his cigarette into the envelope from his pocket and pull himself
back to the coherency of idle conversation.
“It’s a beautiful day for all the lovebirds in the city,” Izaya says as he
settles himself onto the other side of the couch to lean against the support of
the arm and gaze out the window at the white collecting to tiny drifts against
the lip of the sill. “It’s so romantic, you know, freezing to death while
wading through inches of slush.”
“Don’t be cynical,” Shizuo tells him. Izaya looks away from the window to turn
his attention to Shizuo, his mouth quirking onto a smile; he turns against the
couch, facing away from the window and towards Shizuo instead as he kicks his
feet over the length of the cushions and into Shizuo’s lap. Shizuo huffs
amusement at the weight and lets his shoulders tip back against the couch
behind him as his fingers drop to settle gently over Izaya’s calves. “It’s
pretty out there.”
“It’s cold,” Izaya declares. “Or do things like the temperature not bother a
monster like you?”
“If you weren’t so skinny you wouldn’t get cold so easily,” Shizuo tells him.
Izaya’s feet are heavy in his lap, the hem of the other’s jeans sliding up by
an inch on one side to bare an extra gap of skin above the knob at his ankle.
“I’m not the oddity here, Shizu-chan,” Izaya informs him, purring over the
nickname with the taunting weight he always gives it. He’s not looking at the
other when Shizuo glances up at him; he has his elbow braced at the arm of the
couch and his chin resting against his hand, the dark of his gaze focused
towards the haze of snow outside the window and his mouth catching the very
beginnings of a smile against his lips, like he’s thinking about something
completely different than the snow outside. “You’re clearly an aberration to
not mind freezing temperatures. I’d much rather appreciate the snow from here,
where I don’t have to suffer its sideeffects.”
Shizuo snorts a laugh. “Yeah,” he says, and looks back down to Izaya’s feet in
his lap, to the relaxed angle of the other resting against him. “That sounds
just like you.” The words come out soft in his throat, catching on more
affection than he intended, but he doesn’t try to call them back; he shifts his
hand instead to hook his thumb just inside the edge of Izaya’s jeans and tug at
the fabric where it’s pinned under the other’s leg. There’s the faint pink of
pressed-in texture against Izaya’s ankle, the markings from the seam laid into
a temporary pattern against pale skin; Shizuo thinks about pressing his thumb
to the color, thinks about running his touch up along Izaya’s leg to follow the
line against the angle of his ankle and up the curve of his calf. Izaya’s skin
would be warm to the touch, would slide soft against his fingertips; and Izaya
draws his foot back, pulling free of Shizuo’s unthinking hold on his jeans
before the other can react and kicking bruise-hard at Shizuo’s hip. Shizuo can
feel the impact jolt out into him, the force hard enough to flare to hurt for a
moment, and he hisses startled discomfort and looks up to meet Izaya’s gaze.
Izaya’s staring at him, his eyes dark and mouth set; for a moment the tension
at his lips looks nearly like a frown, his expression looks almost angry before
he forces a smile onto the corner of his mouth.
“Too bad you don’t have anything better to do than spend the day with me,” he
says, his smile sharp and eyes dark with no trace of amusement. “Only think how
many girls you could impress with your inhuman tolerance for cold.”
Shizuo frowns. “Shut up,” he says, closing his hand on Izaya’s ankle and
pushing the other’s heel away from the bruise rising at his hip as he tries to
make sense of the shadow behind Izaya’s lashes and the strain of the forced
mockery at his lips. “I don’t see you out with anyone either.”
“Of course not,” Izaya says, and turns away to stare out the window again,
shifting his other foot to weight his leg over both of Shizuo’s instead of in
the other’s lap. “It’s a public service, Shizuo, me keeping you occupied so
everyone else can have a romantic day out.” His voice is teasing, his tone
light, but his smile is fading, his mouth pulling back into that frown as he
offers an unfocused stare at the window. “Only think how distracting a brawl
would be to a new couple in the first flush of love.”
There’s something strange under Izaya’s voice, some tension usually absent or
at least better hidden than it is now. Shizuo keeps watching the other’s face,
trying to gain some traction on Izaya’s thoughts from the half-hidden line of
his profile gazing out the window. “I haven’t gotten into a fight since I saved
you from Izumii,” he says, and blinks hard to shake off the too-vivid
recollection of a pain-pale face, of fingers swelling to angry red, of Izaya’s
spine arching and throat opening on a moan that went through Shizuo like
lightning to ground him out to an unshakeable certainty. “You act like I’d
cause a riot just by walking down the street.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Izaya snaps. “What, does the monster want to make an attempt at
humanity?” His gaze slides sideways, his attention catching at Shizuo’s stare
for a moment; when he turns away this time it’s farther than before, twisting
to offer just his tense shoulders until Shizuo can’t make out his expression at
all. “How romantic. Who’s the lucky victim of your affections?” There’s no
warmth on the words at all; they’re sharp, bitter, vicious with aggression that
sparks answering adrenaline in Shizuo’s veins. He has to press his lips tight
together to keep from snapping a too-quick response, to keep from blurting the
obvious who do youthinkit is, Izaya? to cut off the strange tension in the
other’s throat. As it is it costs him an effort, strains in the back of his
throat and tightens his muscles so his fingers dig in harder that he intends
against Izaya’s ankle in his hold as the other goes on speaking to the snow
falling outside the window. “Someone you saw for a moment at the bar and
haven’t been able to stop thinking of? Is it a tragic romance, Shizu-chan?
Maybe a married woman, or someone too young for you?”
Shizuo’s whole body is tense with adrenaline, with anticipation, with the
perpetual strain of fighting back unwanted honesty and, now, with the grating
edge of irritation rising along his spine to threaten the desperate self-
control he’s sustained until now. “Shut up,” he manages, his voice going dark
with the sincerity of the danger behind it. Izaya’s still not looking at him.
“Stop being a brat.”
“She must be beautiful,” Izaya goes on, as easily as if Shizuo hadn’t spoken at
all. His voice is straining in his throat, sounding like it’s pulling over the
tension of a laugh or maybe of unshed tears, as if it’s panic and not mania
spilling so hot from his lips. “Or maybe just too nice for her own good. Is a
smile really all it takes to calm the savage beast?”
Shizuo’s shoulders hunch into an involuntary attempt to protect the soft edges
of a years-old memory -- wide eyes, a shaky smile, the thud of adoration sudden
and hot in his veins -- from the cut of Izaya’s words making it into a mockery.
“Let it go,” he says, his voice as tense as his shoulders. He wonders if Izaya
can hear the sincerity on the plea, can hear the warning under the demand.
“Just drop it, Izaya.”
“I bet I can guess who,” Izaya drawls, running carelessly past Shizuo’s
warning, past the rising strain of the moment, past the tension of Shizuo’s
fingers tightening well past the point of bruising against the other’s ankle.
Shizuo doesn’t know if he can stop, now, doesn’t know how much control Izaya
still has over the rush of words in his mouth. “It’s that new waitress at
Russia Sushi, isn’t it? She’s quiet, not my type, but she certainly seemed to
like you when we went by there last.” He pauses for breath and takes a shaky
inhale; Shizuo thinks for a moment it’s over, that the flood of words will
finally cease, but Izaya just exhales like he’s trying to shed all his emotion
at once and goes on in that weird, bright ramble of razor-edged taunting. “I’m
not sure she can talk at all, actually. Do you think she speaks anything but
Russian?”
“Izaya,” Shizuo says, his voice as low as it has ever been, his whole body
thrumming with a last-ditch attempt at restraint to hold back the sincere anger
burning his veins to fire. “Stop.”
Izaya’s laugh is bright, bitter, sharp as a slap across the face and a clearer
answer to Shizuo’s plea than his continued speech. “Hit a nerve, I see. I’m
happy for you, Shizuo, really I am, you should have told me sooner that you
were in love.”
The whole world goes still. Izaya’s still staring out the window, his leg still
stretched across Shizuo’s lap and his shoulders still so tight under his shirt
Shizuo can see the strain without even looking; he doesn’t look back as he
delivers this last dig, doesn’t glance to watch Shizuo’s patience dissolve like
the snowflakes melting to damp against the outside of the overlarge windows.
Shizuo’s ears are ringing, his heart is pounding, but: you should have told me
sooner that you were in love, Izaya told him, and Shizuo has never before lost
his temper with Izaya.
“This is ridiculous,” his voice says, delivering the words with icy calm, and
his hand moves of its own accord to shove Izaya’s feet away from the casual
contact with Shizuo’s legs, to force away the suggestion under the touch and
the affection that has gone unstated for too many years and over too many
conversations. He pushes harder than he thinks to, hard enough to shove Izaya
halfway across the couch himself, but he’s moving before he can apologize,
twisting on the couch and rising up onto his knees so he can reach out and
brace a hand against the back of the furniture. Izaya catches himself with a
hand at the coffee table, pushes himself upright as he turns back to Shizuo;
there’s the beginnings of anger in his expression, the snap of frustration on
his lips and fire behind his eyes, but they all evaporate as he sees the way
Shizuo is looking at him, all give way at once as Izaya falls back against the
couch as if surprise has knocked him boneless with shock against the support.
Shizuo doesn’t wait for Izaya to gain his composure back. “This is stupid,” he
says, and then he’s talking, words spilling from his lips too fast to catch
back, all his self-imposed resistance melting away to sudden speed on his
tongue as the patience of years gives way to the relief of honesty. “I keep
waiting and waiting for you to make up your mind and I’m tired of it.” Izaya’s
eyes widen, his breathing catches on shock, but Shizuo can’t close his mouth
and can’t stem the tide of words even if he wanted to try.
“You don’t make any sense,” he says. “Half the time you’re practically in my
lap and act like we got married when I wasn’t looking and the other half of the
time you’re making up these absurd fantasies about some nonexistent
girlfriend.” Izaya is staring at Shizuo, his mouth half-open and his gaze
shocked right out of any edge it may have once had, and Shizuo has never wanted
anyone else in all his life, has never wanted Izaya as much as he does right at
this moment. “Don’t you know why I’m not seeing anyone? It’s not that no one’s
interested. I’m pretty sure that waitress would say yes to a date if I asked.”
Izaya’s expression crumples, the shock in his eyes giving way to agonized hurt
in the span of a breath, his mouth coming open on a hiss as if Shizuo has
slapped him, and the tension of frustration along Shizuo’s spine evaporates,
swept aside by the sudden ache of guilt that hits him at the look in Izaya’s
face, at the hurt darker in the other’s eyes than anything Shizuo has ever seen
from a physical injury.
“Don’t look like that,” he blurts, and he’s moving without thinking, lifting a
hand to press against the curve of Izaya’s cheek before there’s any time for
his usual overthinking to make it awkward with intent. It’s just instinct, just
his palm catching at the other’s skin before he can stop himself, and Izaya
jerks at the contact, his eyes going wide as he hiccups on a breath and goes as
utterly still as Shizuo has ever seen him. “You always look like I’m tearing
your heart out with my bare hands when I mention anyone else and I thought it--
”
Meant something, he wants to say. Izaya is staring at him, unblinking and
unmoving; Shizuo can’t even hear the sound of his breathing, isn’t sure Izaya
is remembering to inhale at all. His eyes are catching the illumination from
overhead, shining with color and the threat of emotion that Shizuo wants to
push away, wants to chase back until there’s nothing but melting happiness in
the other’s face. Izaya looks frozen, half-terrified and all panicked, like
he’s waiting for some blow to fall or for a reprieve from some doomed fate, and
Shizuo doesn’t know which one his statement will be but he’s only ever had
himself to offer anyway, so he takes a breath, and lets himself speak.
“I’ve been waiting on you for years,” he says, and the words surge heavy in his
chest, push at his tongue and demand expression from his lips. “I don’t go on
dates. I spend every Christmas with you.” Memory flashes bright: the tang of
mandarins in the air, the crackle of a sharp-edged laugh across a kotatsu, the
friction of wind-chilled fingers in Shizuo’s own, and Shizuo doesn’t try to
hold back the warmth of the smile that spreads across his face. “I spend all my
time with you. I like you.” Izaya’s breath catches, his expression tensing for
a moment like he wants to offer protest to this; but he doesn’t say anything,
even when Shizuo waits. His eyes are still wide, his lips still parted on
silence; his mouth is flushed nearly to red by the warmth of the room. Shizuo
realizes he’s staring, realizes his attention is lingering overlong against the
soft of Izaya’s lips; but he doesn’t look away, even when his spine starts
flickering into electricity, even when his heart starts to pound harder in his
chest to steal his breath.
“I like you a lot,” he manages, his voice going rough on the edges, and then he
can’t stay still anymore, his fingers are sliding out into Izaya’s hair and
he’s leaning in closer and Izaya is perfectly still under him, silent and
unmoving like he’s waiting for something, like he’s waiting for someone, like
he’s waiting for Shizuo. Shizuo’s fingers catch against the back of Izaya’s
head, his hold steadying into intention too obvious to be mistaken; when he
tips closer the distance evaporates between them, dissolving until he can feel
the heat of Izaya’s too-shallow breathing spilling against his mouth. Shizuo’s
heart is pounding, everything in him is urging him forward, closer, now now
now, finally-- and he stops himself an inch away, a breath away, his heart
rattling in his chest and Izaya’s breathing against his mouth and stronger than
everything else, stronger even than he is: the need to know, the need to be
sure.
“Izaya,” he says. He can’t even hear his own voice between the soft of the
sound and the hum of electricity in his ears. “Can I--”
Shizuo doesn’t know how he would finish that sentence. He isn’t sure he would
at all, isn’t sure he wouldn’t leave it to trail off into shared understanding
as so much between them has always been. It doesn’t matter. There’s a rush of
motion under him, Izaya acting so fast Shizuo’s heat-dazed attention can’t
track it, and then there’s a fist gripping at Shizuo’s vest, delicate fingers
curling in on themselves into a hold so strong Shizuo is sure he’d never be
able to break free of it.
“Do it,” Izaya grates, his voice raw and straining on the words, and his hand
pulls, and Shizuo moves, and their mouths fall into place against each other.
There’s too much to think about. Shizuo’s thoughts reel, skid out on
adrenaline, try to focus on everything all at the same time. The way Izaya’s
mouth is tense against his, still holding to the edge of his words for a long
heartbeat of time. The way his hair feels, tangling to softness against
Shizuo’s palm and around the bracing grip of his fingers. The way his lashes
look this close-up, and the way Shizuo’s nose burns with the smell of licorice,
the way Izaya’s lips are going softer under his, like they’re capitulating to
the force of Shizuo’s mouth against them. The way it feels to have Izaya’s lips
against his. The way it feels to kiss Izaya.
Shizuo pulls back after an eternity, after not nearly long enough. His heart is
pounding so loud against his chest he’s sure it will drown out the tremor of
his voice in his throat. His hand in Izaya’s hair is trembling, he thinks, or
maybe it just feels like it is, maybe it’s just that his entire body is trying
to shake itself into a different state of being, maybe it’s that the touch of
Izaya’s lips on his was enough to make him something new, better, different
than what he was before.
“There,” he breathes, his voice as foreign and strange as the feel of his
heartbeat in his chest. Izaya is staring up at him, his eyes blown so dark
Shizuo can’t see the color of the irises anymore, his lips still parted like
they were against Shizuo’s mouth. “That’s. That was.”
“You’re a terrible kisser,” Izaya grates out. Shizuo’s never heard him sound so
raw. It’s like the carefully composed symphony of the other’s voice has fallen
silent under Shizuo’s lips, has left just the breathless catch of words without
any of the usual facade to distract from their meaning. “Is that really the
best you can do, Shizu-chan?”
“I haven’t ever kissed anyone before,” Shizuo manages. His hand is still in
Izaya’s hair, his shadow still cast over Izaya’s face. Izaya is staring at him
as if there’s nothing else that exists in the entire world, as if he’s gone
blind to everything outside of Shizuo leaning over him. “How am I supposed to
do it?”
Izaya swallows. “I don’t know,” he says, his eyes still wide, his mouth
trembling against the shape of the words until Shizuo almost doesn’t notice the
impossibility of Izaya admitting ignorance, of Izaya capitulating to
uncertainty. “Who am I meant to have practiced with, exactly?”
Shizuo’s shoulders tense. For a moment he can see it too clearly, Izaya leaning
in with a smile at his mouth and seduction in his eyes towards some faceless
stranger, offering the give of his lips and the dark of his gaze for someone
else’s appreciation, and there’s a surge of darkness in Shizuo’s chest, a spill
of jealousy that boils out as “Fuck,” growling to audibility against his mouth
to shatter the brief flare of the delusion into reality instead: Izaya wide-
eyed with shock, Izaya’s mouth soft and awkward on uncertainty, Izaya with no
experience to go on but what Shizuo offers him.
“No one,” Shizuo tells him, possessiveness curling to heat against his tongue,
and then he leans back in to catch Izaya’s mouth under the weight of his again.
Izaya’s lashes flutter in his periphery, the motion surrendering the glazed
dark of his eyes to the cover of his eyelids instead, and Shizuo shuts his eyes
too, his awareness going dizzy with the loss of his sight. It’s overwhelming
like this, with the part of Izaya’s lips soft under his and the smell of the
other’s skin saturating the air until it’s like he’s breathing Izaya straight
into his lungs, and Shizuo’s licking at Izaya’s mouth, tasting the heat of his
lips and reaching for more, farther, for everything of Izaya he can have all at
once. His fingers are catching at Izaya’s waist, his balance giving way to
press him hard against Izaya’s body under him, and Izaya is reaching up for him
too, turning his head and parting his lips to make an offering of his mouth as
his hold catches at Shizuo’s collar, as his fingers slide against Shizuo’s neck
to dig into the tangle of his hair. Shizuo can smell licorice burning to bitter
in his throat, can taste a richness like vanilla against the back of his
tongue, and he’s licking farther into Izaya’s mouth and Izaya is arching up
against him, is curving to meet the weight of Shizuo’s body, and it’s then that
Shizuo catches the flicker of salt at the corner of his mouth.
“Shit,” he gasps, pulling away with more strength than he thought he had,
retreating in the first reflexive jolt of panic as recognition catches up with
the familiarity of that taste. Izaya is blinking hard, his mouth still open on
the rush of his breathing and his gaze unfocused with shadows -- and his cheeks
are wet, his lashes heavy with the tears that Shizuo caught between the
friction of their lips.
Shizuo’s never seen Izaya cry before. He’s seen Izaya bruised, bleeding, dizzy
with a concussion and breathless from the pain of dislocated fingers; but he’s
never seen him so injured or so upset that he surrenders to the impulse of
tears, and now he’s crying, tears are spilling down his cheeks with Shizuo’s
fingers still pressing into his hair and the heat of Shizuo’s mouth still
against his. Shizuo’s heart drops, his whole body going cold with miserable,
horrified guilt, and he loosens his hold immediately, easing his grip away from
the possibility of pain even as he blurts “Fuck” and “I’m sorry,” as if either
of those can possibly make up for whatever it is he has accidentally done to
the one person he never wanted to hurt. “What did I do?”
Izaya stares at him. “What?”
“Did I hurt you?” Izaya is still staring at Shizuo as if he’s entirely
forgotten how to understand spoken language; Shizuo looks down to the other’s
waist, wonders if he’s left the print of his fingerprints as bruises against
pale skin. Or maybe it was the heat of his mouth that Izaya didn’t want, maybe
he-- “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to--did you not want…?”
Izaya’s forehead creases, his mouth drags down into a frown. “What the fuck are
you talking about?” Shizuo thinks the words are intended as anger, meant to
bite and crackle like electricity clinging to metal; but they break halfway
through, drag over emotion and come out as a sob.
“You’re crying,” Shizuo says, stating the obvious as he lifts his hand to ghost
against the damp at Izaya’s cheek. Izaya blinks, his expression going blank
with lack of comprehension; his hand drops from Shizuo’s vest, his fingers land
at his opposite cheek to echo Shizuo’s careful touch against his skin. He lifts
his hand, stares at the wet on his hand like he can’t make any sense of it; and
then chokes on an inhale, his expression crumpling as his breathing catches
onto a sudden sob.
“Shit,” Shizuo hisses, and lets Izaya go completely, rocking back over his
knees to retreat from any contact at all with the other’s body. He thought he
was being gentle, had thought his touch was as careful as it has ever been; but
he’s still hot with adrenaline, it must be his body acting without him even
being aware of it to dig in too hard against fragile bone and delicate skin.
His chest tightens, his stomach knots into a surge of nauseating guilt he can’t
push back as his hands curl to fists to dig his fingernails in against his
palms. “I’m sorry,” he says, and the words are weak but he doesn’t know what
else to offer, not when even attempted gentleness has brought about more
unhappiness than Shizuo has ever seen from Izaya before. “I didn’t mean to hurt
you.”
Izaya hisses, scowling frustration as he lifts a hand to rub a sleeve roughly
across his eyes. “You didn’t.” He sounds angry more than upset, irritable more
than pained; but even when he lets his arm fall his eyes are welling with
tears, his breathing is hiccuping on sobs. “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
“You’re crying, you’re not fine,” Shizuo tells him; but his chest is easing a
little from its first panicked horror, his heart is considering something like
a normal pace. It’s true that Izaya doesn’t look hurt, he’s not reaching to
press against any sign of an injury or hesitating in his movement; when he
shoves against the couch to push himself upright it’s as fluid as ever, if
marked with the jerky speed he sometimes shows when he’s sincerely frustrated.
His mouth is drawn down onto a frown of determination, his forehead creased
like he’s trying to fight back the tears still spilling over his lashes; but
when he reaches out to close his hand at Shizuo’s vest there’s no hesitation in
his hold at all.
“I’m okay,” Izaya says, biting off the words like he can make them true by
force. Maybe he can; the tears seem to be easing, the catch of his breathing is
fading to a more natural rhythm. He pulls at Shizuo’s vest, sliding himself
forward across the couch and close against the other’s hip, and when his lashes
dip to shadow his gaze his other hand comes out, his fingers catching to fit
against the line of Shizuo’s collar and press to the bare skin of Shizuo’s
neck. Shizuo’s lashes flutter, his vision going to a haze as his throat works
on an involuntary moan at the contact, and he hadn’t intended to reach back out
but his hand lifts anyway, his fingers drawn to land at Izaya’s waist as if the
other’s skin is a magnet drawing him helplessly in towards it.
“I’m fine,” Izaya says, sounding almost normal; and then, as his forehead
creases and his mouth twists, “I’m happy,” sounding startled by this statement
even as he says it. He blinks hard, the tension easing from his expression like
he’s only just realizing the truth of his words; and Shizuo looks up at Izaya’s
dark eyes, and soft mouth, and laughs so suddenly it surprises him as much as
it does Izaya. His hand tightens at Izaya’s waist, his fingers spreading wider
to frame the shift of the other’s too-fast breathing against his hand, and
“Okay,” he says aloud, verbal capitulation to Izaya’s statement as much as his
touch was a physical one. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his lips parting on an
invitation as honest as it is involuntary, and when Shizuo’s gaze lands at the
other’s mouth Izaya pulls against his vest, the force a command as clear as if
it were spoken aloud. It’s not impossible to resist; Shizuo could shake off
Izaya’s hold if he wanted, could stay where he is and let Izaya pull himself in
closer instead of surrendering to the other’s urging. He doesn’t. He leans
forward instead, drawn by the drag of Izaya’s fingers curled to a fist on his
vest, and when Izaya lift his chin in unspoken invitation Shizuo tips his head
to the side and fits his mouth to Izaya’s as gently as he knows how.
For Shizuo, Izaya has always been irresistible.
***** Devotion *****
Izaya’s mouth tastes better than Shizuo thought it would.
He’s put some thought into the matter. He’s imagined the bite of coffee, the
haze of smoke, the coppery tang of blood and the sweet-bitter of that
everpresent licorice tang that clings to Izaya’s skin like a marker for his
presence. He’s dreamed of it too many nights to count, has framed Izaya’s lips
to vanilla and chocolate and the dark, heavy tang of coffee and iron at the
back of the tongue until he thought nothing could surprise him, until he was
sure the weight of Izaya’s mouth at his would feel more like coming home than a
foreign experience. But Izaya tastes better, like everything Shizuo imagined
but more, richer, warmer, like there’s a fire under his skin in place of blood
and electricity skirting along the palms of his hands instead of the more
ordinary texture of skin. Shizuo doesn’t know how they ended up toppled over
the couch with the arch of Izaya’s back caught under his hold at the other’s
hip and Izaya’s hands winding to fists in his hair, has no sense of how much
time has passed since his perception of the world outside faded and narrowed
down to just the span of Izaya’s breathing coming hard and hot at his lips, and
he can’t be persuaded that it matters, not when all his thoughts are running
dizzy with heat and relief and the endless, overwhelming satisfaction of
finally, finally being as close to Izaya as he has always wanted to be. Izaya
is no steadier; he keeps moving, dragging away to gasp a lungful of air and
then pulling Shizuo in against him again, as close as they can get, as if he
thinks Shizuo is likely to come to his senses and drag free of the hold he has
on the other’s hair if he once lets it go free. Shizuo can’t imagine what Izaya
thinks he’s likely to object to; even when the other’s teeth catch at his lip
and dig in hard enough to draw the ache of a bruise to the surface his heat-
drunk body just shudders with helpless force, his throat opening up onto a
groan that spills hot over Izaya’s lips as if to chase away the chill of the
winter snow outside.
“Fuck,” Shizuo gasps, fighting for some measure of coherency while Izaya’s
fingers drag at his hair and Izaya’s teeth dig deeper at his lip. Izaya makes a
faint sound of protest as Shizuo gets his mouth free, his fingers twisting
harder against the fists he’s made of Shizuo’s hair; Shizuo can feel the weight
of the other’s hold run fire all down the length of his spine. “You’re trying
to eat me alive.”
“My apologies,” Izaya says, except the words turn over in his throat and come
out purring like an invitation, like an offer to match the dark of his lashes
weighting over the blown-out shadows of his eyes. His neck is a smooth curve,
his skin faintly slick with sweat to match the breathless rush of air in his
lungs, and Shizuo can’t resist the draw of it, can’t hold himself back from the
temptation to duck his head and press his nose and lips against the rush of
Izaya’s pulse in his throat. He can feel the hum of the other’s words taking
shape under the weight of his mouth. “I thought you’d be able to handle a
little roughness.” The fists in Shizuo’s hair ease, loosen from their desperate
hold; Shizuo can feel the drag of Izaya’s fingers sliding over his scalp run
straight through his entire body and tense a knot of heat low at the bottom of
his spine. He makes a sound at Izaya’s throat, something incoherent and
wanting, and he can hear the delighted laughter under Izaya’s voice as he goes
on. “Is that better?”
“Fuck,” Shizuo groans. Izaya’s fingers are dragging at the back of his neck,
now, the other’s touch wandering against the edge of his collar; he turns his
head up to meet the touch, to catch his lips to the thud of Izaya’s heartbeat
at the inside line of his wrist. Izaya’s hand turns up into elegant surrender
and Shizuo shuts his eyes and lets the friction of his lips guide him across
the lines of Izaya’s palm and up along the curl of his fingers, pressing the
imprint of his mouth against the inside of each knuckle as he goes. Izaya’s
fingers shift under his lips, curl and relax in involuntary reaction, and
Shizuo’s hand is shifting too, his fingers slipping out to wander along the
curve of Izaya’s body under him. Izaya arches into the touch, his fingers
tensing as Shizuo kisses against the unique texture of his fingerprints, and
Shizuo’s humming contentment, giving voice to the satisfaction of long-held
desire as his hand catches at the angle of Izaya’s hip and his breathing
catches around the tangle of Izaya’s fingers.
“It’s fine,” he says, and it is, he doesn’t care what they do, doesn’t care if
Izaya wants to wind fingers into his hair or press his teeth into the
indentation of bruises at Shizuo’s lips or the line of his throat; his thoughts
are dizzy on heat and he thinks he would accept anything to have Izaya stay
like this with him. “Whatever is fine.” He turns away from the curl of Izaya’s
fingers against his lips, looks down to the heat turning Izaya’s gaze to smoke
and shadow behind his lashes; there’s an invitation there, preemptive surrender
to anything Shizuo wants to do, and it’s been so long and Shizuo has wanted so
much and all he can do is what he’s been craving for years, what even now he
can’t manage to get enough of. He ducks his head closer, presses his nose in
against the soft skin just under Izaya’s ear; his lips form the shape of an
idle kiss, his breathing catches the rhythm of Izaya’s heartbeat over his
tongue. Everything is warm, rich and bittersweet and filling his nose, his
tongue, his throat, and when he breathes out the air stutters itself into a
groan at Izaya’s skin. “God, you smell good.”
“What?” Izaya sounds faintly amused, like he might be about to laugh, but he’s
turning his head into more of an offer and his fingers are winding into
Shizuo’s hair as if to hold him still. “I smell good?”
“Yeah.” Shizuo works a hand free and up to catch at Izaya’s hair, to brace his
palm against the other’s head and hold him steady while Shizuo presses in
closer against the heat of Izaya’s skin against his lips. “You always have.”
Izaya smells like licorice, he tastes like vanilla; every breath is liquid
warmth in Shizuo’s veins, every inhale eases the strain of desperation and
demands more before Shizuo yet has a chance to fill his lungs again. “I’ve
wanted to do this for years.”
“You really have to work on your pillow talk.” Izaya’s fingers tighten against
Shizuo’s hair for a moment, dragging before he slides his touch down to press
against the back of the other’s neck. “The pining part is good but you might
want to go with kissing or touching as your fantasy instead of smelling. It
shows a little too much of your animal side, Shizu-chan, you’d frighten off
most lovers.”
Shizuo huffs amusement against Izaya’s skin. “Shut up,” he says, the words
going warm around the shape of the smile at his lips. “You’re not frightened.”
“Of course not.” Izaya’s fingers push through Shizuo’s hair, the motion as
unthinking as it is affectionate; Shizuo tips his head in submission to the
unvoiced suggestion, fitting his mouth in closer to kiss against the rush of
Izaya’s heartbeat fluttering with the adrenaline Shizuo imagines he can tastes
like copper in the air. Izaya’s breathing catches at the friction, his fingers
tightening to a fist as his voice dips into incoherency for a moment. “I’ve--
I’ve known you too long to be alarmed by something so trivial.”
“Then it doesn’t matter.” Shizuo doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t lift his head;
when he turns it’s to drag his mouth against the sharp edge of Izaya’s
collarbone pressing close to skin, to skim against the dip of bone and catch
the taste of the shadows there against his tongue. Honesty makes speech easy,
lets words fall from his lips without any need for the distraction of rational
thought before he offers them. “If you don’t care then it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Izaya manages from under him, his voice
skipping higher with every inch of distance Shizuo’s lips gain along his skin.
“In case you want to be more generally appealing to humanity as a whole.”
Shizuo growls against Izaya’s shoulder. “I don’t,” he says, sharp and certain,
and lifts his head so he can crush a kiss against the pale curve of Izaya’s
throat, pressing hard to punctuate his words with the heat of his mouth.
Izaya’s breathing catches, his spine arches; for a moment his body is flush
against Shizuo’s, their clothes caught and tangled between them. Shizuo wonders
if he’ll smell like licorice himself, after this. “Stop acting like I’m going
to abandon you for someone better as soon as I get bored.”
“Oh?” Izaya’s aiming for teasing; Shizuo thinks he’s almost succeeding, thinks
the lie might pass for truth if he couldn’t feel how hard Izaya’s heart is
beating against the press of his chest, if he couldn’t feel stress in the curl
of Izaya’s fingers in his hair. “Come on, Shizuo, don’t you think you could
find someone else if you looked?”
“Sure I could,” Shizuo says, and lifts his head fast, before Izaya’s expression
can collapse into that aching hurt that always comes with this topic. “I’m not
looking.” Izaya’s staring at him, his eyes half-lidded and his lips parted; his
gaze flickers to Shizuo’s mouth, his breathing rushes out of him in an
involuntary plea that Shizuo wants nothing so much as to grant. Shizuo leans
in, drawn by that magnetic shadow in Izaya’s eyes as surely as he ever is, and
Izaya’s turning his head to match him, tipping his chin up in a helpless tell
for what he wants that runs through Shizuo’s entire body like the radiant
warmth of summertime sunshine. He leans closer over the distance between them,
fretting the edges of the gap down to nothing, and Izaya lifts his head to bump
his mouth against Shizuo’s, to catch his lips to a moment of glancing friction
against the other’s.
“You’re a brat,” Shizuo tells him, the word spilling to warmth over Izaya’s
mouth, the insult so long-since turned into affection he can’t even remember
when it became as soft as love against his tongue. His hand catches at Izaya’s
hip, his fingers slipping under the weight of dark fabric to press flush to
warm skin, and he leans in to catch the hiss of an inhale Izaya takes against
his mouth, the impulse too strong and his self-control too weak to stop the
motion even if he cared to try. Izaya’s fingers tense in his hair, Izaya’s lips
part under his, and there’s heat spilling over Shizuo’s tongue and down his
throat, Izaya pressing so close against him that Shizuo can borrow the
electricity that sparks scarlet behind the other’s eyes and let it play across
his skin as well. By the time he pulls away they’re both breathing hard;
Izaya’s mouth is wet and Shizuo’s thoughts are hazy, and when honesty presses
hard at the back of his tongue he opens his mouth and lets it spill into an
offering to the dark of Izaya’s eyes and the heat-haze of his skin. “You’re a
brat, and you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and I’ve never wanted anyone
the way I want you.”
Izaya’s lashes flutter, dipping to hide the shadow of his gaze for a moment as
he coughs a laugh; his eyes are bright when he looks back up, the color shining
with almost-damp to match the tremor of emotion at the corner of his mouth. “I
guess that was a little better,” he says, his gaze and his fingers sliding down
to follow the curve of Shizuo’s collar around to the weight of the tie pressing
against the other’s throat. His mouth is still soft on almost-a-smile, the
warmth of the expression spreading out to light up the whole of his face in
spite of the way he’s ducking his chin in an instinctive attempt to hide it.
“Maybe lead off with the compliment and not the insults next time.”
Shizuo can’t help the smile that spreads across his face any more than he can
hold back the laugh that threatens in the back of his throat. “Shut up, Izaya,”
he purrs without any space for irritation around the rumble of affection in his
chest, and when Izaya lifts his chin to smile up at him Shizuo braces his
fingers against Izaya’s hair, and leans in, and kisses him until the only
shadow in Izaya’s eyes is from the heat-heavy slant of his lashes.
***** Attentive *****
Shizuo doesn’t know how long they stay on the couch together. It’s hard even to
keep track of the steady rush of his breathing and the rhythm of his heart
pounding against his chest like it’s trying to make itself heard to everyone in
the room and not just himself; time slips away from him entirely, minutes and
hours tangling into some interchangeable haze of unimportance. Outside the snow
is still falling, coating the sleek metallic shine of the buildings with a haze
of crystalline cold, but Shizuo doesn’t turn away to see. His attention is
entirely given over to the usual edge of Izaya’s mouth gone soft and submissive
to the press of his lips, to the way he can fit his mouth against the line of
collarbone he has spent years staring at instead of touching, to breathing in
the weight of licorice off Izaya’s skin as the ache of want in his chest
unravels to satisfaction, to pleasure, to the bone-deep relief of having Izaya
as close against him as Shizuo has always wanted him to be.
The first tension of anxious want eases, after a while. The catch of Izaya’s
teeth at Shizuo’s lip gives way, the drag of his fingernails over Shizuo’s skin
shifts into the gentle slide of fingertips instead of trailing red lines in the
wake of his touch; and Shizuo’s grip goes steadier too, edges back from the
desperate-careful hold he had at first and into something heavier, easier, more
certain with every span of breathing that passes. Izaya’s arm ends up draped
around Shizuo’s shoulders, his fingers catching to tug idly at the edge of the
other’s vest; Shizuo’s hand is against Izaya’s hip, his thumb pressing under
the loose fall of dark fabric to rest against the bare skin dipping over
Izaya’s hipbone against the top edge of his jeans. Izaya is warm to the touch,
his cheeks flushed and lips red every time Shizuo looks up to see, and when he
does open his eyes it’s only halfway, his lashes fluttering with weight like
he’s fighting to bring his vision back from the heat-haze Shizuo can see
clouding the color of his eyes to shadow. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t offer any
kind of verbal communication for Shizuo to parse; but Shizuo doesn’t need it,
not when everything from the rush of Izaya’s breathing to the part of his lips
to the slant of his shoulders is saying more so clearly it doesn’t need any
effort to read it. And Shizuo is more than happy to obey, to press his nose in
against the dark of Izaya’s hair and fit his lips to the delicate stretch of
skin just under the other’s ear, to kiss a path up the line of Izaya’s throat
and to the corner of his lips and to slide his hand up to weight the curve of
Izaya’s waist with the span of his palm. There are words Shizuo could find for
this, love and appreciation and adoration so sharp in his chest it burns like
sunlight in his eyes; but it’s hard to find breath for speaking, and easy to
press his mouth to Izaya’s skin, and right now there’s nothing he wants more
than to cover every inch of Izaya he can reach with the print of his lips, with
the friction of the contact he has so craved for so long and can finally
indulge in. It feels good to have Izaya like this, pressing against him and
braced against the touch of his hands, feels good to catch the faint hum of
pleasure in the back of Izaya’s throat with the weight of his mouth on lips or
neck, until Shizuo barely notices the ache of hunger starting to form itself in
his stomach, doesn’t think at all about how much time has passed since his
minimal breakfast until there’s a pang of discomfort strong enough to make it
through the heat-haze clouding his thoughts and pull his attention briefly onto
something other than the way Izaya tastes against his lips.
“Oh,” he says, his voice coming out far lower than he expected as it pulls over
the tension of heat in his chest and humming electric through his veins. “What
time is it?”
Izaya’s eyelids flutter. “Mm,” he manages, opening his eyes enough for Shizuo
to see the flicker of red behind lashes gone shadowed and dizzy on heat. “I
don’t know.” His free hand comes out to catch at Shizuo’s hair, his fingers
sliding into the tangle his touch has already made of the strands. “It doesn’t
matter. Kiss me again.”
Shizuo obeys the pull of Izaya’s hand to urge him in closer, takes a long span
of seconds to fit his lips against the curve of Izaya’s; Izaya’s fingers drag
over his scalp, Izaya licks past his lips with slow appreciation, and Shizuo
opens his mouth wider to let Izaya do as he likes, with just the flex of his
fingers at the other’s waist to speak to his reaction. The kiss goes long,
spanning a small infinity of appreciation in Shizuo’s thoughts; by the time
Izaya pulls away again his breathing is coming harder in his chest, his blood
is purring hotter in his veins, and against him Izaya is arching closer,
curving himself in to push as near to Shizuo’s body as he can get until they’re
as close together as the weight of their clothes will let them be.
“We should have something to eat,” Shizuo says against Izaya’s mouth, without
opening his eyes to allow the haze of his vision to distract him. “It must be
hours since I got here.”
“I’m not hungry,” Izaya says, his fingers twisting into a fist in Shizuo’s
hair. “It’s too cold to go out.”
“I can make you something here,” Shizuo suggests, breathing in a lungful of air
from against the flushed heat of Izaya’s cheek under his mouth. “You wouldn’t
have to go out at all.”
“I don’t want anything,” Izaya tells him. His other hand shifts against
Shizuo’s shoulder, sliding back across the other’s neck to join the first
tangled into yellow hair. “Let’s just stay here.”
“I’m hungry,” Shizuo protests, trying to assign sufficient importance to the
ache in his stomach while all the rest of his awareness purrs suggestion about
Izaya’s mouth, Izaya’s hair, the curve of Izaya’s throat leading down to the
dark slant of fabric across his collarbones. “Have you had anything at all to
eat today, Izaya?”
“I’m not hungry,” Izaya doesn’t answer, his mouth drawing down into a frown
that is really more of a pout than otherwise, with his lips as kiss-bruised as
they are. “I want you to stay here with me.”
Shizuo’s laugh comes on happiness as much as amusement, affection breaking free
of the tension in his chest to spill over his tongue and against Izaya’s mouth
so close to his. “I want to too,” he says, and punctuates with a kiss he
manages to keep reasonably short in spite of the temptation of lingering. “We
have to take a break to eat sometime, though.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums, sounding patently unconvinced. “Do we?”
“Yes,” Shizuo insists, still fighting back laughter that he can see drawing to
echoed amusement at the corner of Izaya’s mouth. He leans in to land a kiss at
Izaya’s cheek and is rewarded immediately with the collapse of the other’s
frown into a smile to match the flush across his cheeks and the shadowed
pleasure in his eyes; he presses another against Izaya’s skin, moves up to kiss
just against the corner of the other’s lashes, and Izaya shuts his eyes and
smiles into a softness that lights more warmth into Shizuo’s veins even than
the weight of Izaya’s fingers against his scalp. “I’m not going to be the
reason you miss lunch and dinner both.”
Izaya heaves a sigh so put-upon it ruffles at the collar of Shizuo’s shirt.
“Fine,” he allows, sounding like he’s granting some enormous concession instead
of agreeing to one of the necessities of existence. “Let’s go out.”
Shizuo’s eyebrows jump up. “I thought you said it was too cold.”
“It is,” Izaya says, and then he’s sitting up all at once, pushing to upright
on the couch before Shizuo can make sense of what he’s doing. His fingers slide
away from Shizuo’s hair, his knee shifts to press hard against the couch
cushion, and then he’s scrambling to his feet before Shizuo has quite caught up
to the sudden loss of the warmth of Izaya’s body against him. “It’ll be faster
this way, though.”
Shizuo moves to sit up from the couch, somewhat more sedately than Izaya did,
and lifts a hand to push through his hair in a futile attempt to smooth it out
of the completely obvious signs of Izaya’s fingers caught in it. “Faster?”
“Yes.” Izaya is moving towards the entryway and sitting at the edge as he
reaches for his shoes; it’s only as he catches his fingers into the heels and
pulls them towards him that he looks back to flash a lopsided smile at Shizuo
on the couch. “So we can finish eating and get back here sooner.”
Shizuo has been kissing Izaya for hours, now, judging from the dim silver of
twilight that has fallen on the other side of the windows; his hair is tangled,
his mouth aches, his fingers are printed over with the texture of Izaya’s skin
against them. He ought to be satisfied, ought to have had enough of Izaya for
the span of one day, ought to be able to shrug off the low purr of suggestion
in Izaya’s voice into a laugh. But Izaya’s smile feels like fire in his veins,
and the dull throb at his mouth feels like a plea for more, and when he moves
it’s more because the distance between them feels suddenly unbearable than from
any more rational thought. Izaya’s still smiling when Shizuo drops to kneel
next to him, his expression melting into softness as he turns his head up
towards the others, and his lips are parted as Shizuo leans in to kiss them,
the happiness at his mouth giving way seamlessly to the soft friction of his
lips against Shizuo’s and the heady catch of licorice in Shizuo’s nose when he
inhales.
It takes them longer than it should to get their shoes and jackets on and make
it out the door, with the constant pausing for Izaya to ruffle his fingers in
against Shizuo’s hair or for Shizuo to fit a kiss against the side of Izaya’s
neck over the soft fur at the collar of his coat, but neither of them are
paying any attention to the time anyway.
***** Surrender *****
Dinner takes longer than Shizuo had expected. He had some half-formed idea of
arriving at the restaurant, ordering a few plates of sushi, and returning to
Izaya’s apartment within the hour; but the walk is slower than usual in the
snow, and the restaurant is crowded with couples out to celebrate the holiday,
and by the time they run into Celty and Shinra Shizuo is already resigned to a
far longer outing than he originally anticipated. It’s nice to see their
friends, and explaining the shift in he and Izaya’s relationship to a rapt
Celty is a pleasant way to pass the time while they wait for their meal to
arrive; but it still takes well over an hour before they’re finishing, and by
the time the two of them wave a goodbye to bemused Celty and effusive Shinra
Shizuo feels the absence of Izaya’s touch like a physical craving strong enough
to overcome his idle interest in a cigarette. He smokes one on the way back to
Izaya’s apartment as the next best thing to what he wants to do, which is wrap
his arm around Izaya’s shoulders and kiss the snow-cold flush off the other’s
cheeks, but it doesn’t help much; he’s still all but trembling with want by the
time they arrive at Izaya’s floor, and Izaya takes the lead down the hallway
with a speed that suggests he is feeling the tension as clearly. He has the
door open by the time Shizuo has caught up to him, is turning back as quickly
as they step through the entrance, and Shizuo is reaching out for him before
the door has well shut behind them. Izaya lets himself topple backwards,
collapsing against the wall at his back as if he’s melting to Shizuo’s touch,
and then Shizuo has his fingers curling against the back of Izaya’s neck and
his mouth pressing to the soft of Izaya’s lips and he forgets everything else
for a long, hazy span of time. Izaya’s hands catch at his clothes, Izaya’s
lashes flutter dark into surrender, and Shizuo shuts his eyes and breathes in
deep and loses himself to the relief of having Izaya against him again.
Rationality surfaces slow. It’s tension, first, the prickling awareness of
discomfort against his spine like some task left undone, some responsibility
forgotten; and then Izaya makes a faint sound against Shizuo’s mouth, something
bordering on the verge of a moan against the other’s tongue, and Shizuo’s whole
body flushes with heat he can’t fight back. He can feel the tension low in his
stomach, can feel the rush of his heartbeat echoed in the heat in his veins,
and he’s pulling back before he can think and blurting “I should go home”
before the arousal against his spine takes over his voice to say something far
more direct.
Izaya’s lashes shift, his eyes opening to stare up at Shizuo with heat-hazed
confusion for a long moment. It’s not until he blinks that the distraction
clears, that his forehead creases as the soft of his mouth compresses into a
line of unhappiness that Shizuo can feel like a physical blow against his
chest.
“No,” Izaya snaps. “No, you should not go home.” His fingers make a fist
against Shizuo’s shirt collar, his arm tightening like he intends to hold
Shizuo where he is by physical force. “What do you need to go home for?”
“It’s getting late,” Shizuo attempts, his attention slipping away from the
confusion in Izaya’s eyes and down to the frown weighting the corners of the
other’s mouth. There’s an urge in him, an impulse to lean back in and smooth
away the unhappiness in Izaya’s expression under the press of his lips instead;
but the heat in his veins is aching towards pain, and if they go back to
kissing he has no idea when he’ll be able to make himself pull away again. “I
have to walk home in the snow.”
“I’ll call you a taxi,” Izaya says, biting off the words into sharp edges as
his fingers clench tighter on Shizuo’s collar. Shizuo can’t make himself look
at the other’s face, can’t stand to see the confused hurt rising behind the
saturated color of Izaya’s eyes, not when he doesn’t know what he might
surrender in an effort to ease that unhappiness. “You’ve stayed later before,
what’s making you so impatient to leave now?”
“It’s snowing,” Shizuo attempts. He can’t meet Izaya’s gaze, can’t let the heat
he’s sure is radiant behind his own expression up to the light, but it’s
pulling him in closer anyway, his whole body is tipping forward as if Izaya is
magnetized and Shizuo is iron drawn irresistibly nearer. Izaya’s hair smells
like licorice, like himself, and for a moment Shizuo gives in to impulse and
breathes in to fill his lungs with the bittersweet aroma that is only ever
Izaya to him, now. “It’s getting dark already.”
“And you’re afraid of the dark all of a sudden?” Izaya doesn’t lift his head
into the suggestion of a kiss; Shizuo is distantly grateful, is sure he’d never
be able to resist the temptation if offered, but there’s a vicious edge under
Izaya’s voice that is chilling the aching want in him into the leading edge of
concern. “Just stay the night here if you’re so worried about it.” Shizuo’s
breath catches, his imagination flaring to Izaya drawing him into the bedroom
he almost never sees, Izaya’s hold on his shirt pulling him down against the
tangle of the sheets under them, Izaya--
“Fuck,” he groans, and shuts his eyes as if that will be enough to push away
the fantasy given too much clarity by the day’s developments, as if that will
be enough to tamp down the surge of want that says to push Izaya back against
the wall and crush the frown at his mouth to softness, that’s demanding that
Shizuo free his hold at the collar of Izaya’s jacket and reach out for the
other’s skin instead, slide his fingers up under the soft dark of Izaya’s shirt
and against the shudder of breathing in his chest to fit his palm to the pound
of the other’s heart, to feel the heat of Izaya’s existence pressing against
the span of his fingertips. “I can’t.”
There’s a beat of silence, a breath of complete stillness in the space between
Shizuo’s body and Izaya’s. Shizuo can hear the breath Izaya takes, can hear the
way tension strains it on emotion even before: “Fine,” harsh and brittle and
razor-edged in the back of the other’s throat. “Get out, then.”
Shizuo blinks. The burning edge of barely-repressed desire in his chest
flickers and retreats to make space for the beginnings of worry for the audible
hurt under Izaya’s tone. He draws back by a half-inch, just enough so he can
look down; but Izaya’s staring straight ahead at Shizuo’s shoulder, his mouth
set and chin tipped away, and Shizuo can’t see his eyes at all.
“Izaya.” Izaya’s jaw tightens, his fingers clench tighter at Shizuo’s collar.
Shizuo can feel his forehead crease on concern. “Are you angry?”
Izaya doesn’t raise his chin. “Get out.”
“Wait.” Shizuo tips his head, trying to see under the shadow cast by the fall
of Izaya’s hair. “Look at me.”
Izaya turns his head down farther, drawing back against the wall as his
shoulders hunch into a protective curl that aches agony into Shizuo’s chest to
see. “Go home, Shizuo.”
“Izaya,” Shizuo groans, and reaches out to press his fingers against Izaya’s
chin and turn the other’s face up to the light. Izaya’s head tips up, his hair
falls away from his eyes, and for a moment his expression is completely
unrestrained, the motion too fast for him to block himself off with the wall he
retreats behind whenever conversations go down a route he doesn’t want. His
mouth is trembling, his eyes are soft with hurt; he looks like he’s about to
cry, Shizuo can see the shine of tears collecting against the dark of Izaya’s
lashes. It’s like the last several hours haven’t happened at all, as if all the
warmth Shizuo has to offer to Izaya has iced over with a single misstep on his
part, and when Shizuo sighs it comes out heavy with frustration more for
himself than for Izaya.
“Fuck,” he says, and lets Izaya’s chin go so he can shove his hand through his
hair instead in pursuit of some kind of solution. “You act like I’m abandoning
you. I don’t want to leave.” It seems like a perfectly obvious statement, like
he’s saying the sky is blue or that the sun will rise in the morning; but Izaya
is watching him with the misery behind his eyes giving way to uncertainty, like
even this universal truth is too much for him to quite believe. “What do I have
to do to convince you I’m not going anywhere?”
Izaya’s mouth sets. “You’re going right now.”
Shizuo groans. “It’s one night, not forever.” He reaches back out for Izaya’s
shoulder and closes his fingers tight against the other to pin him back against
the wall behind him, as if maybe the force of his hold will prove what his
words aren’t, that letting go of Izaya after so long wanting him is so
difficult he is barely managing the necessity of it. Izaya lets himself be
pushed back, tips into submission against the support at his shoulders; but his
mouth is still shaky, his lips are still caught on a frown, and Shizuo doesn’t
know how to convince him with anything except for the truth.
“Look,” he says, and then has to pause, has to pull his thoughts into perfect
clarity so he can force his way through the next sentence without stumbling
over his own words. Izaya just waits, his eyes dark on that awful uncertainty,
and Shizuo can feel himself already burning with embarrassment but he can’t
stay quiet, not with Izaya so clearly convinced Shizuo is leaving him for some
reason other than the obvious one. “I’m going home so I can jerk off before you
kill me with another three hours of teasing.”
It works, at least. Izaya’s eyes go wide, his mouth comes open on a faint
exhale of shock; Shizuo can feel himself flushing with self-consciousness but
he keeps talking anyway, determined to see this conversation through to the end
no matter how much his spine is prickling with embarrassment. “It’s a little
weird to fantasize about you when you’re on the other side of a bedroom door.”
Izaya blinks. He’s still staring at Shizuo with shock all across his face;
there’s something not-quite-focused about his eyes, like he’s looking through
the other and at something completely different. “Yeah,” he says, his voice a
little fainter than usual, a little higher in his throat. “You’re right,
Shizuo, that is weird.”
Shizuo huffs an exhale of relief. His face is still burning with a blush, but
at least this conversation will be over soon, and if it chased away the hurt
from Izaya’s eyes the sacrifice of his own composure is a small price to pay.
“So I have to leave,” he says, feeling the ache in his stomach resume now that
his concern is abating, the heat in his body reminding him of how hard he’s
been and for how much of the day. “The sooner the better, actually.”
“You don’t,” Izaya says, still in that distant, contemplative voice, and then
his lashes shift, and his vision comes back into focus at the same time that he
reaches out to slide his fingers against Shizuo’s hip. Shizuo’s breath catches
in his throat, his body responding as if commanded by the ghosting touch of
Izaya’s fingers, and then Izaya grabs at his beltloop and pulls so hard that
Shizuo’s unsteady balance gives way completely to send him stumbling forward.
He has to take a step to catch himself and keep from crushing Izaya back
against the wall with the weight of his body, and Izaya -- Izaya is curving in
towards him, his whole body shifting fluidly off the wall to press suddenly
flush against Shizuo’s. Shizuo’s foot is between Izaya’s, his leg fitting
between the other’s knees; the smooth shift of Izaya’s motion presses them
close together and pins Izaya’s jeans hard against Shizuo’s thigh, and for a
moment every thought in Shizuo’s head goes blank as he feels how hard Izaya is
against him. His lungs catch a breath for him, his hand comes out to grab at
Izaya’s hip, and Izaya is purring up at him, his eyes gone as dark as Shizuo
has ever seen them, his lips parting to make an offer of his mouth even as he
speaks. “It’s a lot less weird if we’re on the same side of the door.”
“Shit,” Shizuo gasps. “It’s been half a day, Izaya, I can’t go to bed with you
tonight.”
“It’s been six years,” Izaya tells him. His gaze drops from Shizuo’s eyes to
his lips, his lashes fluttering to heaviness as he tips his chin up into
suggestion, as his head angles to the side to make a temptation of the curve of
his throat. “What else do you have to give me as a Christmas present?”
“Jesus,” Shizuo says, feeling his heart racing to overdrive in his chest as his
better judgment wages a losing battle against the want pounding into his pulse
like a drumbeat made of raw heat too-long restrained. He’s leaning in, he can’t
help it, and Izaya’s turning his head to match Shizuo’s, his lips parting to
suggestion as the force of his hands drags Shizuo closer bodily. Shizuo can
feel his self-restraint thrumming along his spine, straining itself to the
breaking point as Izaya arches off the wall in an attempt to get closer even
than he already is. “I’m not going to sleep with you for Christmas.”
Izaya’s lashes dip. “No?” When he moves it’s to straighten off the wall, to
take an impossible step closer against Shizuo’s body; his balance is unsteady,
his footing uncertain, and Shizuo is moving without thinking, his hand sliding
up from Izaya’s hip and under the other’s jacket to catch against the curve of
Izaya’s back under his touch. Izaya tips back, his weight leaning hard at the
support of Shizuo’s hand as the soft of his mouth curves up into a smile with
some of the lopsided amusement Shizuo is so accustomed to. “Don’t you want to
fuck me, Shizuo?”
Shizuo is sure Izaya can feel the way his whole body flares to heat, the way
his already-hard cock jerks with impossibly greater want against the front of
his slacks. “God,” he gasps, and tries to take a step back, tries to gain
enough distance to collect himself from the too-vivid imagination of Izaya’s
fingers in his hair, Izaya’s knees spread wide around him, Izaya moaning heat
against the breathless part of Shizuo’s mouth. Izaya follows, unstoppable and
immediate, and all Shizuo can taste in the air is licorice. “Of course I--”
“You could,” Izaya cuts him off. He’s moving forward, pressing hard against
Shizuo and not easing his hold at the other’s slacks, and Shizuo stumbles
backwards, his balance giving way as if Izaya’s urging is a gravity all its
own, as if the world is tipping under their feet to drop them into each other’s
arms again. Izaya’s eyes are darker than Shizuo has ever seen them before, his
lashes shadowing the blown-wide black of his pupils until Shizuo can barely see
the shading of red he knows is there; he looks dizzy, looks intoxicated, his
focus caught and tangled at Shizuo’s mouth instead of meeting the other’s gaze.
“Tonight. Right now.”
“Shit,” Shizuo says, and runs hard into the couch behind him. He loses his
balance and reaches out to catch himself instinctively against what support
Izaya offers, and as he falls to sit against the arm of the furniture his hands
slide into symmetry, his fingers spreading out to catch the width of Izaya’s
hips between the span of his palms. “Don’t tease me.”
Izaya shakes his head. “I’m not teasing you,” he purrs, and then he’s leaning
forward, sliding one knee up to press close against the other’s hip before he
braces a hand at Shizuo’s shoulder and tips in to straddle the other’s lap.
Shizuo can’t help the sound he makes in the back of his throat any more than he
can help the way his cock aches heat against Izaya pressing against him, the
way electricity flares to fire along his spine as his fingers tense at Izaya’s
hips and he pulls to drag the other closer. His self-control is gone, his
actions are given over entirely to reflex; his hands are pulling, his hips
rocking up, and against him Izaya is gasping, is arching forward to grind
himself hard against Shizuo’s hips with as much elegance as instinct can
provide to the fluid motion of his body. Shizuo presses his face in against
Izaya’s shoulder, turns his head to gasp heat against Izaya’s throat as his
legs angle wider, as his hips buck up, and then Izaya arches hard against him
and upsets their too-precarious balance entirely. Shizuo’s falling backwards,
his throat giving a brief, wordless sound of shock, and in the heartbeat of
panicked awareness he has to brace for impact it’s Izaya he reaches for,
catching his arm tight around the other’s waist to hold Izaya against him for
what buffer Shizuo’s body can give to their landing. Izaya’s arm tightens
around Shizuo’s neck, holding them close together like he’s reading the other’s
intention, and then Shizuo’s shoulders hit the couch, and Izaya hits his chest,
and the grip of heat on his body jolts free to leave him breathless and staring
wide-eyed at the ceiling overhead.
“Fuck,” Shizuo says as soon as he can find the air to speak again. “Are you
okay?”
“Yes,” Izaya says against the side of Shizuo’s neck, and when he moves it’s to
rock himself forward, to arch his hips down to grind against Shizuo’s as if he
intends to resume right where they left off. Shizuo’s shoulders tense, his
breathing rushes out of him in a strangled groan, and when he grabs at Izaya’s
hips it’s with that same instinctive need to have the other closer, to hold him
still so Shizuo can push up against the resistance of Izaya’s leg braced
between his. Izaya lets Shizuo’s neck go, reaches to grab at the far edge of
the couch instead, and then he’s moving again, with renewed purpose and force
granted by him maneuvering his knee between Shizuo’s to brace against the
cushions under them. His weight rocks forward, his thigh pressing in against
Shizuo at the same time he grinds himself against the resistance of the other’s
hip, and Shizuo’s head is spinning and his cock is aching and everything is
hot, hazy and overwhelming until he can’t figure out if he wants to slow down
or stop or shove Izaya back against the support of the couch and press against
him until he finds satisfaction against the sharp angles of the other’s body.
“God,” he groans, not sure whether he’s protesting or pleading for more. When
he reaches out it’s Izaya’s hip his touch lands at, his fingers tightening hard
in a futile attempt to still the other long enough to catch his breath, long
enough to catch his thoughts, long enough to remember why it is this ever
seemed like anything other than a spectacularly good idea. He turns sideways,
spilling Izaya into the narrow space between his body and the back of the
couch, and Izaya makes some sound made of absolute heat, the resonance of it
purring up his throat as he hooks his leg up and around Shizuo’s hip. Shizuo
hisses and reaches out to hold Izaya still for a moment, for a breath, but his
hand lands at Izaya’s thigh, his fingers spreading wide to catch the strain of
the other’s movement against his palm, and for a moment all he can do is gasp
himself through white-out electricity while Izaya’s hips rock forward to buck
hard against him again.
“Izaya,” Shizuo manages. Izaya’s hot under his touch, his skin must be radiant
for Shizuo to feel it so clearly through the denim of his jeans, and Shizuo’s
fingers are sliding up of their own accord, seeking out the loose edge of
Izaya’s shirt and the line of the other’s waistband with some half-formed
thought that spirals off into impossible, shuddering heat in Shizuo’s
imagination before it’s even formed. “Izaya, fuck, just.”
“Shizuo,” Izaya groans, and Shizuo’s name sounds like sex on his tongue, the
low vowels trembling in the back of his throat until Shizuo imagines he can
feel them thrumming against Izaya’s chest pressed flush to him. “Don’t--”
“Hold still,” Shizuo insists, speaking fast before he can hear what Izaya wants
him to not do, before he can piece together the command of don’t stop that he
won’t have any hope of resisting. His hands close at Izaya’s hips, his body
acting of its own accord to push the distraction of Izaya’s mouth and hands and
hips away for the breath of calm Shizuo needs to collect himself. Izaya goes
easy, falling backwards to land over the cushions underneath them, and Shizuo
turns to follow him, inverting their positions so he can hold the desperation
of Izaya’s movements down to enforced stillness under the weight of his hands
at the other’s body. His heart is pounding in his chest, beating so hard he
feels dizzy with the rush of it, and under him Izaya’s eyes are blown out to
black, his lips parted on breathing coming so hard Shizuo can hear the catch of
every inhale the other takes.
“Just wait a second,” Shizuo begs, but Izaya’s fingers tighten at his neck, his
lashes fluttering with heat that says Shizuo’s words are going utterly
unattended. He rocks up against Shizuo’s hold, or tries to; the curve of his
body stops against the grip of the other’s fingers at his hips as if it’s hit a
wall. Shizuo realizes distantly how hard he’s pushing, realizes his hold must
be printing bruises into the sharp lines of Izaya’s body under his; but when he
tries to loosen his grip Izaya moves again, bucking up against his hands until
Shizuo has to bear down the harder just to hold him still.
“Here,” Shizuo says, shifting his weight in an attempt to get better traction
for his hold. “Just--” His knee slips against the couch, his weight falls
forward to press hard against the front of Izaya’s jeans, and underneath him
Izaya jerks, and gasps a strange, desperate inhale, and Shizuo can feel Izaya’s
whole body shudder into unmistakable pleasure underneath him. Shizuo catches a
breath, shocked out of any kind of clear thought, and Izaya--Izaya is trembling
underneath him, tensing through waves of sensation that Shizuo can feel
breaking against him like the ocean against a cliff-face. The hand at the back
of his neck is tightening, Izaya’s fingers flexing and releasing in tiny
involuntary shudders in time with the tremor tensing in his thighs; Izaya’s
eyes are out-of-focus, his whole expression has gone slack for the ripples of
pleasure running through him, and Shizuo is staring, feeling like his whole
world has stopped in its tracks to give him this moment to watch Izaya coming
underneath him. He can’t breathe, he thinks maybe he’s forgotten how; but it
doesn’t matter, not when Izaya’s lashes are fluttering over heat-hazed vision
and not when Izaya’s lips are parted on inhales that turn themselves over on
the convulsive shudders running through him to come out as whimpering moans
with every breath.
Shizuo doesn’t know how long it goes on. It can’t be more than a few
heartbeats, realistically; but by the time Izaya sighs a last long exhale of
relief and lets himself fall heavy over the cushions Shizuo feels like a
lifetime has passed, feels like his whole existence is fundamentally changed by
knowing, now, the way Izaya looks when he’s coming.
“Holy fuck,” he hears himself say, the words fainter than he expected them and
breathless as if he’s been sprinting. “You just.”
Izaya blinks, lashes working over the color of his eyes, and closes his mouth
on the heated gasp of breathing he’s been indulging in. Shizuo can see his gaze
come back into focus, can see the dark weight of bone-deep satisfaction in the
eyes fixed on him; there’s a flush across Izaya’s cheeks, a catch to the
breathing at his damp lips. Shizuo can feel the tension of self-consciousness
in the press of every individual finger at Izaya’s hips. “I barely touched
you.”
“Yeah,” Izaya says, and Shizuo’s never heard his voice sound like that before,
sultry and purring and hot with all the seductive weight he has always so
easily played at and never quite meant sincerely. Shizuo’s whole body thrums
answering heat, responding to Izaya’s voice as if he’s an instrument being
played by the vibration, and Izaya eases his bracing hold against the side of
the couch and slides his hand down over his shirt without breaking eye contact.
“You’re a real professional, Shizuo, clearly your skills are unparalleled.”
Shizuo almost laughs, thinks he would if his head weren’t ringing so struck-
bell bright with the need to memorize every detail of this moment, every breath
Izaya takes underneath him. “Shut up,” he says, the words more habit than
intent. “I didn’t realize--”
Izaya’s mouth quirks at the corner. “That I wanted it that much?” he wants to
know, and then there’s weight at the front of Shizuo’s slacks, Izaya’s fingers
pressing against the soft of the fabric to scatter any coherency Shizuo might
have had. “That I’m desperately hot for your inhuman strength?” Izaya’s voice
makes the words an innuendo, makes them a whole novel of suggestion, and then
his palm digs in against the front of Shizuo’s slacks and Shizuo’s breathing
rushes out of him in a helpless groan, his hips bucking forward to shove
against the resistance of Izaya’s hand against him. His eyes shut, his
attention scattering to the sudden surge of heat in him, and Izaya’s fingers
are trailing over his clothes, the movement slow with appreciation even before
he catches his thumb against the button of the other’s slacks. “Come on, Shizu-
chan, I thought you put two and two together when you set my fingers that one
time.”
“Don’t call me that,” Shizuo attempts, but the command lacks any force even to
his own ears, and Izaya’s pulling his zipper open and he’s not sure he believes
this is really happening but he is sure he doesn’t want it to stop. “Fuck,
Izaya.”
“Right,” Izaya purrs. “I forgot.”
Shizuo’s distraction melts into a laugh for a moment, even the slide of Izaya’s
touch slipping over his stomach and under the waistband of his boxers set aside
for a moment of amusement so warm and glowing it’s indistinguishable from
adoration in his throat.
“You didn’t,” he says without even the illusion of irritation on his tone. “You
never--” and Izaya’s touch brushes against him, the weight of fantasy becoming
real under his fingertips, and Shizuo’s thoughts scatter as his hips buck
forward with involuntary force to push desperately against Izaya’s hand.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Izaya says, and then he’s reaching in farther, his fingers dragging and
sliding and curling into a grip around the heat of Shizuo’s cock and it’s too
much, already it’s too much to have the tension of those fingers weighting
against his skin. Shizuo’s hands are flexing, he can’t stop them, he’s going to
leave bruises where he’s holding Izaya down, and then Izaya’s wrist shifts and
he strokes up over Shizuo’s length and Shizuo groans himself into a surge of
desperation and frees his hand from Izaya’s hip to grab at his shoulder
instead. His fingers press against the neckline of Izaya’s shirt, his palm
drags at bare skin, and his thumb settles against the curve of Izaya’s throat
like it was meant to be there, like it’s seeking out the rhythm of Izaya’s
heartbeat as a guide for Shizuo’s own. Izaya’s heart is pounding, Shizuo can
feel the too-fast flutter of it against his thumb; but then, so is his own,
he’s feeling lightheaded from the desperate lungfuls of air he’s managing, and
Izaya is still stroking over him, his fingers tightening closer against
Shizuo’s cock with every drag of friction he offers.
“You were right,” Izaya says, his voice strange and distant against the roaring
heat in Shizuo’s ears, laid over the thudding awareness that Izaya’s fingers
are around me, Izaya’s hands are on me, Izaya istouchingme.“Sex tonight would
have been a really bad idea.” His grip tightens, his wrist flexes. “I’m going
to need at least a week of prep to take you, Shizuo.”
“Fuck,” Shizuo says, because his shoulders are straining on heat and his cock
is aching under Izaya’s touch and now his imagination is flaring too, is
suggesting Izaya sprawled over the sheets of his bed, Izaya gasping as he works
elegant fingers inside himself, Izaya’s legs around Shizuo’s hips and his hands
in Shizuo’s hair and Shizuo over him just like they are now, bracing Izaya
still as he rocks forward to slide into the heat of the other’s body. Shizuo
can’t breathe, he can’t think, Izaya’s stroking over him and he’s leaning
forward to gasp at the other’s shoulder, to turn his face in and breathe in the
damp of overheated air from the curve of Izaya’s throat under his lips.
“Izaya.”
“I should have known” Izaya says. Shizuo can feel the purr of the sound humming
under his lips, can feel the flutter of Izaya’s pulse beating rapidfire under
the weight of his thumb. “I always said you were a monster.” He shifts, his
head turning in against Shizuo’s; when he speaks next his lips drag against the
curve of Shizuo’s ear, his breathing spills to heat over the other’s skin. “I
had no idea I was so right.”
“Izaya,” Shizuo starts, not sure what he wants to say, tasting affection and
adoration and arousal all tangling together into some all-encompassing
confession in the back of his throat, and Izaya’s fingers slide over him and it
all melts down to a groan, to heat pressing close against Izaya’s skin from
Shizuo’s lips as if to fit them into the same span of existence. Shizuo’s hips
rock forward without his intention, following the rhythm of some deep-laid
instinct just as surely as the racing thud of his heart is, and Izaya is
gasping as if he’s the one on the verge of orgasm again, his whole body going
taut under Shizuo’s as if he’s holding the entirety of Shizuo’s anticipation on
the other’s behalf. His hand is tangling into Shizuo’s hair, his grip is
sliding up over the heat of Shizuo’s cock, and Shizuo wishes he could see,
wishes he could watch, but he wants everything all at once, wants to see
Izaya’s fingers pulling over him at the same time he can feel Izaya trembling
underneath him and while he’s still drawing long, overhot inhales from the
radiance of Izaya’s throat under his lips. Shizuo’s moving, he thinks, taking
tiny half-formed thrusts forward to match the stroke of Izaya’s hand; or maybe
it’s Izaya moving under him, or maybe it’s just the pattern of their breathing
falling into sync that has Shizuo so dizzy on heat. Izaya’s fingers slide up,
the texture of his palm warm and close and dragging, and Shizuo can feel
everything in him drawing to a single point of tension, can feel the weight of
anticipation laying itself across his shoulders until it’s too much even for
him, until even his strength gives way to the force. His hips jerk, his throat
works, and he just has time to hear “Izaya” drawn to a desperate, wide-open
plea before relief breaks over him and crushes away anything but the immediate
sensations between each beat of his heart. He’s coming, each pulse of heat
spilling across Izaya’s wrist and bracing fingers, and Izaya is gasping for
air, half-moaning through his exhales as if he’s shuddering through orgasm all
over again. The idea brings another flush of heat with it, laces Izaya’s skin
over with another spill of come, and then the tension fades to satisfaction,
and Shizuo’s body goes slack with relief, and for the first few seconds it’s
all Shizuo can do to breathe, to catch the taste of Izaya’s skin against his
lips and let the languid pleasure of that hum contentment through the whole of
his body.
It’s some time later that Shizuo thinks to shift, that he comes back into
himself enough to realize that he’s pinning Izaya down to the cushions by his
grip, that the other won’t be able to shift free even if he tries. He
determines to move to ease his hold, to drag his hands free of the warmth of
Izaya’s skin; but it still takes a moment before his sated body will respond,
and even then his movement is slow, heavy like he’s dragging himself through
syrup, or maybe like he’s struggling against the magnetic force of Izaya’s skin
that wants him to stay close, closer, as close as he can fit himself now that
he has the option.
“God,” he says, incoherent and half-voiced as he shifts and succeeds in easing
his hand away from Izaya’s shoulder and freeing the rhythm of the other’s pulse
to visibility from under the cover of his thumb. “Izaya.”
Izaya takes a breath, the sound loud enough that Shizuo can hear the catch of
air in the back of the other’s throat, and when he moves it’s to let his grip
on Shizuo go to pull hard at the other’s hip instead. He’s pulling straight
down, like he wants the full weight of Shizuo lying atop him; but Shizuo tips
sideways instead, sparing Izaya from taking the burden of his pleasure-languid
form but leaving his arm where it is across the other’s shoulders. He turns his
head against the cushions under him, blinking himself back into focus as Izaya
tips his head to meet his gaze, and for a moment they just stare at each other
in silence, Izaya’s eyes still dark with lingering heat and his mouth gone
soft, now, absent either the tension of panic he had in the entryway or the
curve of satisfied delight from a few minutes ago. He looks calm, right now,
with his lashes dipping heavy over the clarity of his gaze and his lips barely
parted on the rhythm of his breathing, looks relaxed in a way Shizuo has never
seen him, like he’s finally been freed of some tension Shizuo hadn’t even
realized was there. Izaya’s gaze shifts, sliding down over Shizuo’s features
like he’s mapping them, like he’s touching his fingertips to the other’s skin,
and Shizuo can feel awareness of that gaze shiver down the whole of his spine
as Izaya takes a breath to speak.
“Do you still need to go home?”
Shizuo can feel amusement spill out into his body, can feel it humming warm
under all his skin as his lips curve up into a wholly irrepressible smile.
Izaya’s forehead creases, his lips parting on an inhale as his eyes flicker
with uncertainty, but Shizuo’s leaning in already, closing the gap between them
to bump his forehead to Izaya’s and ease away that momentary strain with the
comfort of physical contact. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his gaze shifting over
Shizuo’s too-close features, and “I’ll call a taxi,” Shizuo tells him before
pressing the hesitation off Izaya’s lips with the weight of his own.
He’s happy to stay as long as he can. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
***** Quiet *****
“Fuck,” Shizuo growls as much to the winter-chill of the air around them as to
Izaya leading the way down the sidewalk away from the headquarters they’ve just
left. “I hate visiting them.”
“I don’t know why,” Izaya says, sounding a little bit sincere and mostly
amused. “The Awakusu-kai have never been anything but perfectly polite to both
of us.”
“They’re yakuza.” Shizuo finds his box of cigarettes in his pocket and slides
one free to set against his lips. “They’ve probably killed people.”
“Probably several people. What’s the problem here?”
“Don’t be a brat,” Shizuo says, looking sideways just as Izaya flourishes a
lighter at him without looking. He reaches out to slide the weight of the
silver from the other’s fingers; he’s fairly sure it’s his own, or at least
that he purchased it and ostensibly owned it for a brief period of time, but
he’s found that any lighter he has in his pocket inevitably ends up in Izaya’s
within a day of purchase, and it’s easier and certainly cheaper to just let
Izaya maintain a monopoly on them. It’s not as if they’re any less accessible
in Izaya’s hand than in Shizuo’s own. “They’re dangerous and you know it.”
Izaya looks at him sideways, raising an eyebrow along with the corner of his
mouth as Shizuo flicks the lighter open and brings it to the end of his
cigarette. “And you could take out everyone in the room. They’re dangerous, and
we’re dangerous, and we all know it so there’s no problem.”
“Says the adrenaline junkie,” Shizuo says without any heat. He closes the
lighter and offers it back again; Izaya holds his hand out expectantly, like
he’s waiting for an offering from a loyal subject, and Shizuo presses the
smooth metal between their palms for a moment. Izaya’s fingers curl around the
shape, his wrist flexing slightly under Shizuo’s fingertips; and then he draws
his hand away to slide the lighter back into his pocket, and Shizuo lets his
hand fall back to his side once more. “I haven’t trusted your sense of danger
since middle school.”
“Mm,” Izaya purrs. “You’re smarter than you look, you know, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo snorts a laugh. “Shut up” but the words come as gently as his sideways
lean to bump against Izaya’s shoulder, and Izaya pushes back just as hard with
a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Shizuo can’t help but grin in
return, can’t hold onto his protective worry in the face of the purring
adrenaline running happiness through him instead of anger, and when he pulls
his cigarette away from his lips it’s to sigh away his worry along with the
smoke of his first inhale.
“I don’t get why he’s getting info from you in the first place,” he says,
letting idle curiosity take the place of concern. “Why do the yakuza care about
high school gangs anyway?”
“You’re underestimating high schoolers,” Izaya informs him. “Just because the
color gangs start as kid games doesn’t mean they stay that way. Anything with
enough people behind it can become something powerful. Shiki-san is just
protecting his interests by staying on top of the news before it becomes a
problem.”
“You make it sound like the city is just an explosion waiting to happen.”
“It is,” Izaya agrees without hesitation. “Like a fuse waiting for a spark.” He
takes a breath, as if he’s bracing himself, and then draws his hand back out of
the pocket of his jacket. “Everyone’s dangerous.”
When Shizuo looks over at him Izaya’s not watching him -- he’s looking straight
ahead, his jaw set like he’s completely enraptured by the ordinary scene of the
street in front of them -- but his fingers are tense at his side, his hand
curled into the appearance of unconscious relaxation but with too much strain
at his wrist and shoulder to quite pass as such. Izaya’s thumb shifts as Shizuo
watches, trembling with the faintest hint of adrenaline, and Shizuo can feel
his heart skid faster in his chest like it’s answering the motion.
“Yeah?” Shizuo says without really thinking about what he’s saying. He’s
looking at Izaya’s hand instead, at the deceptively casual curl of those
fingers like they’re waiting something to close around, like they’re making the
offer that Izaya isn’t putting words to. Shizuo’s sleeve is already catching at
Izaya’s; it’s almost no movement at all to reach up to press his fingers to the
soft fur lining the cuff of the other’s coat. Izaya’s hand shifts to the idle
weight, his wrist turning out to make space for Shizuo’s touch, and Shizuo lets
his fingertips slide down the silky give of the coat to bump against the inside
of Izaya’s wrist instead, to trail out across the lines that traverse the
warmth of Izaya’s palm like a map Shizuo can read under the weight of his
touch. Izaya’s fingers shift, his thumb curls in to bump Shizuo’s, and Shizuo
slides his hand down farther to lace his fingers into the spaces between
Izaya’s. Izaya’s fingers shift, Shizuo can hear him take an inhale that comes
louder than it ought against the cool of the air, and Shizuo tightens his hold
into the gentle curl of affection around Izaya’s hand. “Us too?”
There’s a pause, a moment of hesitation while Izaya stays quiet, while his
fingers stay slack in Shizuo’s hold, as if he’s not sure, even now, that this
allowed, that he dares to reciprocate this. Then he breathes out, the sound
slow and deliberate, and Shizuo watches Izaya’s fingers flex and tighten around
his hand to press responsive warmth into his skin.
“Yes,” Izaya says aloud, and when Shizuo looks up Izaya is watching him with a
lopsided curve to his lips and so much softness in his eyes that Shizuo can
feel it like sunshine against his skin, as if the chill of winter in the air is
fading away just from the way Izaya is gazing at him. His fingers tense to
press in hard against Shizuo’s; Shizuo can feel the pressure purring up the
whole of his arm, can feel the comfort of Izaya’s hold as tight on his hand as
if he never intends to let go. “Especially us.”
Shizuo can feel a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, the curve of it as
irrepressible as the contentment warm in his veins. He leans in, tilting his
weight sideways to press gentle force against Izaya’s shoulder, and Izaya ducks
his head and leans back harder, hard enough that Shizuo can feel the sharp line
of the other’s shoulder pressing against his arm through the weight of his
jacket. Shizuo turns his head half-towards Izaya and breathes in a lungful of
cold air; the smell of Izaya’s hair clings to the chill, the faint hint of
licorice sticks in the back of Shizuo’s throat. Izaya’s fingers tighten again,
his grip tensing almost to the point of pain against Shizuo’s hand for a moment
before he lets it ease, and Shizuo smiles and lets his thumb slide to press
idle affection against Izaya’s skin.
Neither of them say anything else on the way home, but with Izaya’s fingers
tight around his, Shizuo doesn’t notice the quiet.
***** Adrenaline *****
From the doorway, Shizuo can’t make out what Izaya is saying.
He doesn’t care about the words. It’s not the absence of coherency in the sound
of the other’s voice that is straining across his shoulders and gritting
frustration along his jaw; Shizuo doesn’t often listen to the details of
Izaya’s work negotiations, finds that they too often strain his worry to the
breaking point and leave him jittery enough afterwards that he wants nothing so
much as to carry Izaya back to his apartment bodily and lock the door to keep
the threats the other so casually wades into as far away as possible. It’s some
small comfort to have that possibility actually available to him now, to know
that he could step in and close his fingers into a hold around Izaya’s wrist
without running the risk of outright rejection; but that knowledge does him no
good at all when Izaya tells him to “Stay by the door” and strides forward into
the shadows of the room without the least apparent concern for how much like a
temptation to violence the fragile line of his shoulders and the mocking cut of
his smile look. Shizuo stays where he’s told -- this is Izaya’s work, after
all, and he knows enough to know that some measure of risk goes along with it -
- but that doesn’t mean he has to like it, and it’s not enough to stop him from
slouching against the edge of the doorframe with his arms crossed hard over his
chest and doing his best to watch every shadow in the room at once. There are
other people in the room, lurking in corners in clusters that are hard to see
and harder to get a count of; but Shizuo cares far more about the way Izaya is
walking away from him, about the gap of distance the other’s casual footsteps
are putting between the too-delicate lines of his body and the protection
Shizuo’s fists can offer. Shizuo fixes his attention at the back of Izaya’s
shoulders, and scowls as if that’s likely to get him any reaction at all, and
Izaya ignores him as thoroughly as if he’s not there at all, like he doesn’t
need the confirmation of sight to know Shizuo is staying where he was told.
He’s speaking instead, his voice low and inaudible except for those high notes
on the almost-mocking lilt of his usual vocal range, and Shizuo watches him
move, watches the tilt of Izaya’s shoulders and the angle of his head sweep
through the motions of tense negotiation as if through the steps of a dance.
It’s striking to watch. Shizuo can admit that much, even if he doesn’t like how
far away Izaya is; there’s a show, here, something like a performance going on
that Shizuo never sees in the all-too-common interactions Izaya has with his
connections in the yakuza. Those are almost casual, low conversations in plush
cars that circle blocks before depositing them back on the sidewalk where they
were first picked up, or easy chats over soft couches where Shizuo can sit
immediately alongside Izaya and feel confident, at least, in his proximity to
the other in case of a crisis. But this is taut, there’s tension thrumming
through the air with every word Izaya or the woman he’s speaking to voices, and
Shizuo isn’t sure what the angle of her knees or the click of her nails is
meant to signify but he can read Izaya like a book even across the shadowy
distance of the room, can see the taunting self-confidence written in the angle
of his wrist at his side and the tilt of his head against the collar of his
coat. It’s all a show, a facade for the benefit of the strange woman now
sliding off her barstool to step forward across the gap between herself and
Izaya’s easy stance in the middle of the floor; but that doesn’t make it less
convincing, not when every aspect of the display is so perfectly calibrated.
It’s eerie, really, to see the Izaya Shizuo knows so entirely hidden behind the
brittle shine of this face the other puts on, with the bright smile and the
laughter in his voice and the reckless disregard for his personal safety -- and
then Izaya’s fingers twitch, his right hand shifts to flex his fingers against
the shadow of his coat, and Shizuo’s attention spikes at once, adrenaline
rushing sudden and hot into his veins as he straightens at the door. Izaya’s
not stepping away, not falling back or looking over his shoulder at Shizuo, but
Shizuo knows what he saw, and when he looks around the rest of the room the
other figures are moving too, unfolding from their shadows to press threat down
against the pair standing isolated in the center of the room. Shizuo takes a
breath, ready to give voice to a warning at the same time he braces to step
forward; and Izaya moves before he can speak, his hand sliding into his pocket
at the same time he takes a step backwards. Shizuo’s breathing catches, his
whole body tenses on the first surge of overwhelming adrenaline; and Izaya’s
twisting, his hand coming out whip-quick to flash a blade up towards the
closest of those moving figures, towards the shapes close enough to be called
attackers, now. There’s a screech of metal, blades catching and dragging over
each other, and then red, a splash of color against dark clothes and pale skin,
and Shizuo’s whole body goes hot, his throat tightens on his exhale to turn it
dark and threatening, and he lunges forward towards Izaya.
There’s no time to think. There are enemies, a whole cluster of men and women
closing in around Izaya at their center, the flash of illumination catching and
glinting off the knife in Izaya’s bleeding hand, and Izaya’s moving, backing
away instead of towards Shizuo, increasing the distance for the other to cross
with every syrup-slow heartbeat of time that passes. He’s not turning his head,
not so much as glancing back at Shizuo moving towards him; his gaze is still
fixed on the woman they came here to meet, his smile going wide and bright
until it’s caught at the edge of mania that still, even now, makes Shizuo’s
memory flash to an open window and the backlit glow of sunlight around the
narrow shoulders of a first-year in middle school. Shizuo’s heart skips, his
breathing catching on something agonizingly balanced between affection and
terror; but he’s closer, now, Izaya’s backed up against a wall and still
clutching the handle of his knife, and every second the attackers hesitate to
come in range of Izaya’s blade is another second for Shizuo’s body to move
itself forward. His fist moves on its own, his body surging through the motions
of violence too ingrained into the heat in his veins and the tension in his
muscles to be forgotten even over months of peace, and when his knuckles
connect with the side of an attacker’s skull Shizuo doesn’t even look to watch
the collapse of a body gone boneless with unconsciousness, doesn’t pause for
even a flicker of hesitation at his actions. There’s no regret in him, barely
any thought; there’s just Izaya, leaning against the wall at his back with a
careless slouch as if he’s just waiting for Shizuo to arrive, as if he doesn’t
even notice the handful of attackers still trapping him against the wall.
Shizuo seizes the closest one, fisting his grip into a hold against whatever
clothing he can reach to lift the other off his feet and toss him aside and out
of the way, and against the wall Izaya is relaxing, is letting his arm start to
fall back to his side. He’s watching the woman, still, his eyes focused on her
as his lips move through something Shizuo can’t hear over the chaos of the
fight and the roaring of his heartbeat in his ears. There’s only a pair of
attackers left, now, one of them turned around to gape shock at Shizuo as if
he’s never seen someone fight before; but the other is moving before Shizuo can
shove him aside, taking advantage of Izaya’s distraction to lunge in and swing
the weight of his fist towards the other’s face. Shizuo can see Izaya’s gaze
flicker sideways, catching at the motion of the attacker’s action without
enough time to do more than twist away in a quick, reflexive cringe from the
impact. Shizuo sees the punch land, sees Izaya’s balance give way as he
stumbles sideways at the force of the blow; and something inhuman erupts into
his veins, some unstoppable force shoves him forward. His feet are moving, his
legs throwing him forward with reckless haste, but he catches his balance as
his fingers clench hard against his palm, has the whole of his weight solid as
he turns to interpose his shoulder between Izaya and the attacker. The other
man blinks, his attention starting to drift to Shizuo with slow-motion
exaggeration, but if the other is caught by the delayed reaction of human
reflex Shizuo is moving in doubletime, his arm swinging through a smooth arc to
smash his fist with unerring precision against the fragile line of the other
man’s nose. He can feel the shape of it crumple beneath his knuckles like
concrete powdering to dust beneath the grip of his fingers, and he’s turning
before the other has completed his involuntary collapse to the support of the
floor, reaching out to slam the open weight of his palm against the chest of
the last man standing. The other doesn’t try to fight, doesn’t even get a hand
up to soften the blow; he just gasps a breathless attempt at air, his eyes
going wide as he stumbles on unsteady legs, and Shizuo grabs his shirt one-
handed to throw him back against the wall where the rest of his fellow
attackers are standing or lying. Shizuo pivots on his heel, his heart still
pounding and vision hyper-clear in expectation of another attack; but there’s
no one left but himself, and the woman, and Izaya still on his feet, moving
away from Shizuo again with a stride as easy and graceful as if he is resuming
the steps of that briefly-halted dance, as if the whole span of the fight was
just an interlude to the conversation he’s been having.
“That was clumsy,” he says, his voice brighter, now, louder than it was, so
Shizuo can hear him clearly even past the thud of his blood rushing to
adrenaline-heated steam in his veins. “Did you really think you were going to
get the upper hand by throwing your toughest members at us?”
The woman isn’t watching Izaya. Her gaze is fixed on Shizuo, her eyes wide and
mouth gaping; her feet shift as Shizuo steps forward, her heels slipping on the
floor in a reflexive attempt at retreat stalled by the bar counter she’s
pressed against. She catches a breath, her inhale sticking in her chest, and
shakes her head in a rejection Shizuo thinks is more involuntary than
deliberate.
“He’s not human,” she breathes, a terrified whisper meant more for herself than
for either of them, still staring at Shizuo like he’s a nightmare, like he’s a
monster, like he’s an unstoppable force coming for her destruction. Shizuo
doesn’t care. He is, he is all of those things, Izaya is bleeding onto the
floor and bruised to what must be agony across his jaw and this woman is
responsible, and he is going to destroy her. He takes a step forward, his hands
drawing tight into fists in anticipation of the crush of bone, the heat of
blood, the breaking of this person who dared to hurt--and Izaya’s hand comes
out, his fingers sliding and curling into a hold around Shizuo’s wrist as
gentle as it is unbreakable, and Shizuo blinks, and turns his head, and the
haze of red fades from his vision as quickly as the familiar features of
Izaya’s face come into focus.
“Really,” Izaya says, drawing the word long and purring in his throat. He
doesn’t turn his head to look at Shizuo, doesn’t show any sign of noticing the
other’s eyes on him, but his fingers tremble against Shizuo’s wrist, the motion
too minor to be seen but clear against the adrenaline heightening all Shizuo’s
senses to crystalline clarity. “Is that what you think.”
The woman is still looking at them. Shizuo is aware of that, distantly, aware
on the fringe of his consciousness of her eyes on him, on Izaya; but she’s not
moving to make herself a threat, and Izaya isn’t easing his hold on Shizuo’s
wrist, and so Shizuo keeps his focus on Izaya instead, on the electric crackle
of excitement behind the other’s eyes that makes him look reckless, makes him
look like danger incarnate in a dark jacket and bloodstained knuckles. Izaya’s
head tips to the side, his smile dragging wide and lopsided, and Shizuo starts
to speak, to say “Izaya,” with the intention of following this with a warning,
or a growl, or a demand to let him free so he can deal with the initial cause
for that bruise he can see faintly outlined against Izaya’s jaw. But Izaya’s
fingers tense, press in hard against Shizuo’s skin in immediate response, and
while Shizuo is falling to startled silence and looking down at the tension of
Izaya’s bloody knuckles on his wrist the other is speaking, still in that
clear, bright tone that makes it clear the words are intended for the woman in
front of them as much as the pressure of his fingers is intended for Shizuo.
“We don’t know anything about Nakura,” he says, and Shizuo’s whole body tenses
on the memory that comes with that name, as if he’s feeling all over again the
distant ache of a knife cutting through his shirt and skin, as if he’s hearing
an echo of Izaya’s voice breaking open on pain and arousal in equal parts. It
catches his breath, and tightens his fingers, but Izaya doesn’t let his hold
go, and even when Shizuo looks back up to the other’s face Izaya’s not looking
at him, he’s staring at the woman before them with that set mania in his eyes
and the curve of a private smile at his lips. Shizuo wonders what Izaya is
thinking of, wonders if Izaya knows what he’s thinking of. It wouldn’t be the
first time. “He’s gone, left town as soon as he got out of the hospital. He’s
probably cities away by now, trying to forget Ikebukuro ever happened to him.”
Izaya’s fingers flex against Shizuo’s wrist again, his hold shifting like he’s
trying to get a better hold on the rhythm of the other’s heartbeat under his
touch.
“Don’t worry about paying me,” he says, still without turning to meet Shizuo’s
gaze. “Consider it an advance on future business deals.” And he’s turning,
pivoting smoothly on his heel and moving towards the doorway without easing his
hold on Shizuo’s wrist. It’s enough to tug Shizuo forward, to urge him to trail
in Izaya’s wake; but he doesn’t need the urging, doesn’t need any additional
motivation to stay as close to Izaya as he can, now that the other isn’t moving
away with every step forward Shizuo takes. He moves in lockstep with Izaya
through the shadows of the room, following the other’s lead through the
scattered chairs and groaning forms of fallen attackers, and then Izaya pushes
the door open and they’re stepping out into the glow of winter sunlight bright
and near-blinding in comparison with the dark inside. Shizuo flinches at the
illumination and ducks his head to the bright, and his gaze catches against
Izaya’s fingers pressing hard at his wrist and the red trickling across the
other’s knuckles to drip over Shizuo’s skin.
“You’re bleeding,” Shizuo says, his voice gentler than he was expecting it to
sound with the evidence of Izaya’s injury right in front of him.
“It’s fine.” Izaya sounds strange, his voice strained; when Shizuo looks up at
his face he’s still not meeting the other’s gaze. His eyes are fixed straight
ahead of him, his jaw set on some unshakeable focus; he’s moving faster now
that they’re outside, as if he’s as anxious to put distance between himself and
danger as Shizuo is. “It’s a scratch.”
Shizuo frowns as the dismissive disregard in Izaya’s words. “It’s not,” he
snaps, and pulls his hand free so he can step in closer, so he can reach out
and grab at Izaya’s arm to keep him from skipping away and out-of-range again.
Izaya’s head tips, his chin coming down so he can glance at Shizuo’s hold on
his arm, and it’s then that Shizuo sees the smear of red at his mouth, the
suggestion of blood catching at the corner of the other’s lip just above the
bruise rising across his jawline. His breathing catches, his heart aches, and
he’s lifting his hand without thinking, raising his free hand to touch his
fingers to the color caught against the corner of Izaya’s mouth.
“Your lip too--” he starts, and then his thumb bumps against Izaya’s lip and
Izaya’s mouth comes open as he whimpers a sound that jolts through all Shizuo’s
blood like fire. Shizuo jerks back from the contact, his spine prickling
electric with the rush of his heart pounding in his chest. “Did I--”
“It’s fine,” Izaya says, and he’s moving faster, now, striding forward with
such a rapid pace that Shizuo thinks it’s only his continued grip on the
other’s arm keeping Izaya from breaking into a run. Izaya’s jaw is set, his
gaze still fixed ahead of him as if he’s incapable of so much as glancing at
Shizuo, but his cheeks are flushed to color, there’s the stain of heat
darkening across his cheekbones, and whatever it is bringing his breathing to
such audible speed it’s not pain, in spite of the blood at his lip and across
his knuckles. “Shut up.”
Shizuo frowns at Izaya’s profile, his frustration going unseen or at least
unacknowledged. “Izaya.”
“Shut up” Izaya snaps, and then he’s turning, twisting around the corner and
down a side alley without any warning at all. Shizuo stumbles in his forward
stride, his hold on Izaya’s arm tightening as he struggles to find his balance;
then he gets his feet under him, growling incoherent protest to this sudden
action, and turns to follow the lead Izaya so abruptly set. Izaya really is
running now, or maybe he’s falling forward with only Shizuo’s hold at his arm
to keep him upright; Shizuo tries to steady them, to pull them back into
balance, but Izaya is still moving forward towards the alley wall, twisting in
Shizuo’s hold to face the other just as Shizuo’s foot catches on the uneven
pavement and his balance veers to send him stumbling forward. He has to throw
his free hand out to catch himself before falling into Izaya, his palm smacking
hard against the wall over the other’s shoulder, and he’s just blinking himself
to focus, just starting in on “What--” that he intends to follow with are you
doing before there are fingers in his hair, and Izaya arching up off the wall
in front of him, and the pressure of a greedy mouth crushing heat against his
lips and stifling his question unformed. All the air leaves his lungs at once,
spilling to the sharp edges of a startled curse against Izaya’s mouth; but
Izaya’s fingers are curling into a fist at his vest, and Izaya is whining
plaintive desperation against his mouth, and any protest Shizuo might have
considered offering flickers out against the overwhelming distraction of Izaya
kissing him. The lingering tension of worry along his spine eases, the
adrenaline of violence in him melting and soothing itself into warmth instead;
his hold against Izaya’s arm goes gentle, his whole body cants forward and in
like it’s trying to be even a breath closer to Izaya in front of him. Izaya’s
touch is dragging through his hair, Izaya’s fingers are bracing hard against
the back of his neck, and when Izaya licks against his lips Shizuo parts them
in obedient surrender to let the other press in against the heat of his mouth.
There’s the tang of metal at the back of Shizuo’s tongue, the familiar bitter
of licorice caught around the suggestion of blood from Izaya’s bleeding lip,
and then Izaya’s teeth are catching at Shizuo’s lip and Shizuo can feel all his
blood flare with immediate, responsive heat. He groans an exhale, his body
tipping forward of its own accord, and against him Izaya is arching up to meet
him, is twisting his arm free of Shizuo’s slack grip and reaching up to press
both hands into Shizuo’s hair instead of just the one. He feels desperate, from
the drag of his fingers to the straining arch of his back, and Shizuo has to
pull back just to cling to some kind of rationality, has to gasp for air while
he reaches to brace a steadying hold at Izaya’s hip.
“Jesus,” he manages, his fingers catching against denim, his thumb slipping
across soft fabric. He just means to hold Izaya still, to brace the other
against the effort thrumming to such strain under his skin, but Izaya’s shirt
slides, Shizuo’s palm fits against warm skin, and Shizuo is huffing a breath of
heat as backdrop to the shiver that he can feel run through Izaya against him,
that he can see dip and flutter into weight at the other’s lashes. “What the
fuck, Izaya?” The words are harsh but his touch is gentle; Shizuo can’t pull
his hand away, can’t resist the urge to slide his touch sideways and up, to fit
the weight of his palm against the dip of Izaya’s spine and pull the other in
close against him. Izaya’s lashes are heavy, his lips parted on the rush of his
breathing; his gaze is sliding across Shizuo’s face, his focus catching and
holding to the other’s mouth even as his head angles back against the wall as
if to make a show of his throat for Shizuo’s consideration. Shizuo can see the
flutter of Izaya’s pulse coming fast just under the taut curve of skin; he has
to fight to remind himself where they are, to muster any situational awareness
at all to keep him from taking that offering right now and losing himself
completely to the demands of the moment. “Shouldn’t we at least go back to your
apartment?”
“No.” Izaya’s answer comes fast, drawling to a purr in the back of his throat
as his fingers slide down to curl against Shizuo’s vest and pull the other in
closer against him. Shizuo takes a half-step in, close enough that the angle of
his shoulders almost entirely hides Izaya from the rest of the world, and Izaya
makes a low sound of appreciation in his throat and ducks in to shudder a
breath against the collar of Shizuo’s shirt. “Here is fine.”
“Here is not fine,” Shizuo attempts, but he’s losing what grasp he ever had on
his resistance, he can feel it melting away with each of Izaya’s inhales
against the fabric at his throat. Izaya shifts his feet, arching up off the
wall to get closer, and Shizuo takes a step wider to steady his balance as
Izaya’s weight shifts against the support of his hand at the other’s back. “We
can’t just--” and Izaya curves up off the wall, his whole body rocking forward
in one fluid motion to grind the angle of his leg hard against Shizuo’s slacks.
Shizuo’s coherency gives way all at once, his words dying to a broken-off groan
of heat as he drops his hand from the wall to seize Izaya’s hip instead and
hold the other still while he tries to figure out if he is going to pull him
closer or if he can muster the will to push him away. “Izaya.”
“We can,” Izaya says, and the words are gasping in the back of his throat, he
sounds like he’s panting for air he can’t find around him. “No one would stop
us.” Izaya shifts again, his arm sliding closer around Shizuo’s neck, his mouth
dragging up to breathe heat against the other’s throat; his leg hooks around
Shizuo’s hip, his body arches forward to grind himself in closer, and Shizuo
has to shut his eyes against the full-body tremor of want that hits him with as
much force as his usual adrenaline surges do. Izaya’s lips catch at his hair,
Izaya’s mouth drags against his ear; when the other speaks his voice is a
whisper, like he’s sharing a secret for Shizuo’s attention. “No one would
dare.”
“You’re crazy,” Shizuo says, his head spinning with heat and his nose full of
the smell of licorice sharp enough to override even the tang of blood from
Izaya’s cut hand. His hand against Izaya’s back slides up, his fingers press
against the pattern of vertebrae marking out the curve under the other’s skin;
when he leans forward he can press his face against Izaya’s neck, can fill his
aching chest with the familiar bite of the other’s scent like he’s breathing
steam into his lungs. “Do you get off on exhibitionism that much?”
“It’s not the exhibitionism,” Izaya tells him, his voice sliding over the edge
of recklessness and into outright danger, and Shizuo doesn’t need to see his
eyes to know how blown-dark they must be, doesn’t need anything but proof of
the other’s voice to imagine the dip of dark lashes and the part of damp lips.
Izaya rocks himself forward again, hanging on his hold around Shizuo’s
shoulders as he grinds his hips forward hard against the other’s thigh, and for
just a moment Shizuo can feel how hard Izaya is against him, can feel the heat
and resistance of the other’s arousal pressing into him as if Izaya is wholly
prepared to get himself off right here, if Shizuo is willing to hold still for
it. The idea makes Shizuo shudder, pulls his hand down lower to slide against
Izaya’s jeans and drag the other in close against him, and when he moves it’s
reflexive, an involuntary forward motion that pins Izaya back against the wall
and presses their hips flush together. Shizuo can feel the relief of the
friction spike up his spine, can feel the demand for more like a rhythm to
replace the thud of his heart, and against him Izaya’s head goes back, his
throat opening up on a whine as plaintive and desperate as anything Shizuo has
ever heard from him.
“Fuck me, Shizu-chan,” is what Izaya says, and it’s half a plea and half an
order, a command for Shizuo to act on those same impulses he is losing his grip
on even now. For a moment Shizuo can see it clear, Izaya pinned back against
the wall and his knees open around Shizuo’s hips, his whole body hot and
radiant and--
“Don’t,” Shizuo gasps, struggling to pull himself back from the too-clear
image, from the temptation so strong it’s surging like fire in his veins. He’s
still holding Izaya back against the wall, still rocking against him in
helpless, needy motions, and Izaya’s head is tipped to the side, the whole line
of his throat a surrender and an offering that Shizuo knows he could take,
knows he could have, right now, just for the giving in to his own desperate
instincts. But he can’t, he won’t, Izaya deserves better than the rough use
Shizuo’s body is screaming for, he deserves--
“I’m not,” Shizuo starts, and there’s a roar of frustration in his veins, the
tension of want crackling through him until it’s all he can do to hold himself
steady against it. He turns his head against Izaya’s neck, breathing in hard
like the smell of the other’s skin is an offering to appease the want so
violent in him, and some of the strain in his shoulders eases, some of the
tension in his muscles gives way. He lifts his chin by an inch, enough to press
his lips to Izaya’s skin in the weight of a kiss, and he can feel coherency
returning to him, can feel the anxious edge of restraint pulling back to
steadier ground, to more certain truth. “I’m not going to have sex with you in
an alley.”
Izaya’s exhale comes out in a huff, broken down the middle by incredulous
amusement. “You sure?” There’s a slide of friction over Shizuo’s shoulder,
trailing down the front of his vest to his slacks; Shizuo has to shut his eyes
as Izaya’s fingers slide over the weight of his cock inside his clothes, as the
other’s palm presses the low ache of relief against him. He can’t help the
sound he makes, can’t help the involuntary forward jerk of his hips, and
Izaya’s leg is still caught around his hip, Shizuo can still feel Izaya as hard
as he is against his thigh. “You sure seem like you’re trying.” His fingers
slide closer, dragging up over Shizuo’s length through the weight of his
clothes, and Shizuo’s voice breaks, his breathing catching to a whimper of
near-painful desire against Izaya’s hair.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Izaya tells him. He’s shaking, Shizuo can feel him, from the
bracing arm he still has around Shizuo’s neck to the press of his leg against
the other’s hip; he turns his head in against Shizuo’s hair, his nose pressing
against the other’s cheek so the spill of his words comes as the heat of
temptation against Shizuo’s mouth. “Just give me a couple fingers and a little
spit, I’m sure we’d be fine.”
Shizuo’s breathing huffs out of him at once, something between arousal and
agony flaring in his veins at the thought of his hands bruising on Izaya’s
skin, at the idea of shoving to force spit-damp fingers inside the other’s
body, of feeling Izaya tense around the pressure, seeing Izaya shudder with--
with the too-much friction, with the pain of Shizuo’s movement instead of the
pleasure of it. “I’d hurt you.”
“I don’t mind,” Izaya says, his words coming one atop the other with manic
speed. “I’d probably come faster anyway.”
“God.” Shizuo has to shut his eyes to that, has to wait for the shadows of
memory to give way, for the sound of Izaya’s voice breaking on a moan in the
shadows of a dark basement to fade from his thoughts before he can trust his
voice to clarity. “You really are a masochist.”
“Yeah,” Izaya says, without even making an attempt at denial. He turns his hand
and presses his palm in harder against the front of Shizuo’s slacks, the
pressure sharp like he’s trying to drag arousal into Shizuo’s veins by force.
“Come on, Shizuo, you know you want to.”
“I do,” Shizuo gasps, and he lets Izaya’s hip go and reaches to close his
fingers around the other’s wrist instead. He can feel the strain of effort
along Izaya’s arm as he pulls the other’s touch away from his clothes, can feel
Izaya’s attempts to drag himself free fall into futility against the grip of
Shizuo’s fingers on his arm. Shizuo pushes Izaya’s hand away, lifting it up to
pin it to the wall above the other’s head, and Izaya shivers against him, his
whole body tensing like Shizuo’s movement is electric. Shizuo can see the dark
in Izaya’s eyes when he looks down at him, can see the invitation at the part
of the other’s lips so desperate it’s almost a plea and he knows, knows
absolutely, that he could shove Izaya back against the wall right here, that
Izaya would let him do anything he wanted, would submit to Shizuo’s force
almost before he asked for it. It would be so easy, it would be so simple; the
want of it is all across Izaya’s face, dark behind his eyes and written into
the tension of his arm under Shizuo’s fingers, Shizuo could own and have and
take, all he has to do is tighten his hold around Izaya’s arm and press the
weight of dominance against the pale skin under his hand. Shizuo can feel the
adrenaline rushing through him, can feel the whole of his strength waiting to
descend and crush Izaya back against the wall; and he can feel Izaya’s wrist
under his fingers, can feel the fragile line of bone pressing close against
skin under the weight of his touch. He takes a breath, feels it pressing
against the tension all through his body; and then he lets it go, and lets the
adrenaline go, and lets himself settle back into the framework of his own body
with something like relief along his spine.
“I do,” he repeats, tasting the desire on his tongue shift from something wild
and destructive into heat, into warmth, into the ache of patient affection that
he has borne for so long, that he knows almost as well as he knows the smell of
Izaya’s hair and the color of his eyes. He eases his hold on Izaya’s wrist,
curling his fingers into a careful support as he draws the other’s hand away
from the wall and in towards himself so he can press his mouth to the inside
dip of a palm gone slack with surprise. Izaya’s fingertips bump Shizuo’s cheek,
Shizuo’s lips fit against the heat of Izaya’s hand, and Izaya makes a faint
sound in the back of his throat, all the tension draining out of his body at
the contact of Shizuo’s lips at his skin.
“Not here,” Shizuo says against Izaya’s hand, like he’s whispering the words to
the delicate framework of the other’s fingers more than for his hearing, like
Izaya’s hand will catch the sound of his voice to trap it just between them,
just for their ears, something private and tender and just between the two of
them. When he lifts his head Izaya is staring at him, his lips parted and eyes
wide and endless; the dark shadows of heat are still behind his lashes, still
hazing the crimson of his eyes to something heavier and hotter, but they’ve
gone softer, now, the brittle edge of desperation has startled away to leave
just heat in its wake. Shizuo wants to kiss him, wants to ease the barrier of
clothing off Izaya’s skin and press his mouth against the curves and edges laid
bare for his appreciation, wants to watch that heat spread into a flush over
Izaya’s cheeks and melt to softness at his mouth and resonate into a moan in
his throat, into pleasure shaped around the vowels of Shizuo’s name; but he
wants it alone, himself, without the violent demands of adrenaline to pull him
from his body and strip him of his patience and care, without the possibility
of inconvenient interruption to distract his attention from where it should be,
from the person it should be on. “Let’s go home.”
The words taste like a promise on his tongue.
***** Close *****
They end up on the floor of Izaya’s apartment.
Shizuo had less patience than he thought he did. Outside it seemed a simple
matter of will to hold himself to composure, to get them over the distance
between the assigned meeting place and Izaya’s front door; for the first few
blocks of the walk he’s even entertaining ideas of washing the dark-clotted
blood from Izaya’s fingers first, maybe of pressing ice against the bruise
rising against the other’s jaw, and then making their way to the bedroom, where
Shizuo can strip layers of dark clothes off pale skin and indulge himself in
slow, wandering kisses all across Izaya’s body until he can’t make himself wait
any longer. But his patience starts to give way before they’re even halfway
back, and Izaya has his jaw set into determination that Shizuo isn’t completely
sure he wants to resist, and by the time they’re inside the entrance to the
apartment building Shizuo can feel the strain of want pressing against every
breath he takes, can feel every inch of distance between himself and Izaya like
a physical burden. Izaya’s hand has been tightening on his the whole of the
walk back, his fingers digging in until they’re verging upon pain, if Shizuo
was in a state to notice anything but the heat pounding to need inside his
chest, and when Izaya draws them into a pause in front of his door so he can
handle the keys Shizuo can hear panting effort in both their inhales that has
nothing to do with the minor physical exertion. Shizuo is leaning in closer
while Izaya turns the key, reaching to push at the door while he breathes in
against the soft dark of the other’s hair, and then Izaya turns the handle and
the door comes open and they’re both toppling inside, hands catching at each
other as fast as they move to trip over the edge of the entryway and land
across the floor. The door swings shut on its own, the lock catching as fast as
Shizuo’s knees hit the floor, and Izaya’s flat underneath him and looking up
with his eyes blown nearly to black with anticipation and Shizuo knows with all
the certainty in him that they’re not moving from this point again until
they’ve found satisfaction in and against each other.
“Fuck,” he says, his coherency fracturing and dissolving to the way Izaya is
looking up at him, to the damp at Izaya’s lips and the shift of his throat on
his breathing. “Izaya, you.”
“Are you done waiting?” Izaya blurts. The words should sound impatient but they
don’t; they come out strained, expectant, so tight with hope that they’re more
rhetorical than sincere. “Is your sense of decency satisfied?” His gaze flicks
to the door, his head tilts in a gesture towards the weight of it that Shizuo
doesn’t turn to follow; his breathing is coming so fast his words come out
panting on the effort. “There’s a shut door and everything. We could lock it,
even, if you wanted.”
Shizuo shakes his head. “I don’t care” and he’s leaning in like he’s drawn by a
magnet, his whole body insisting on impossible closeness against Izaya under
him. Izaya whines when Shizuo kisses him, his throat opening up on a tremor of
sound that Shizuo can catch and taste like the shine of copper on his tongue,
and he’s still trembling when Shizuo draws back, his lashes heavy over his eyes
as Shizuo blinks hard to see the way heat sits across the familiar lines of
Izaya’s face. “This is fine.”
“Finally,” Izaya groans, and he’s shifting like Shizuo’s words were permission,
sliding his knee sideways and open to fit his legs around Shizuo’s instead of
under them. It’s an echo of their position in the alley, and the heat that
rushes through Shizuo is the same burn of instinctive understanding; except
they’re in Izaya’s apartment now, there’s a door to keep out the world and
nothing around them but the familiarity of home, and there’s nothing at all
stopping Shizuo from capitulating to the ache of desire shaking itself through
all his veins. He’s moving before he thinks, his hand closing to brace Izaya
still at the floor as his hips come forward and down to grind against the open
angle of the other’s thighs, and Izaya’s lashes flutter, his expression giving
way in time with his voice breaking into a moan as his body curves up as if to
meet the resistance of Shizuo’s. Shizuo’s thoughts are going hazy, his focus
fracturing away, and some part of him is purring about immediate gratification,
about bringing Izaya shuddering into pleasure beneath him before working
through the complexities of anything else; but then his imagination offers the
alternative, suggests the possibility of feeling Izaya coming as much as seeing
it, and Shizuo retrieves some measure of self-restraint he didn’t know he was
master of to come back from that first edge of desperate, impatient want.
We’re going to do this, his thoughts insist. Right here, right now, you’re
going to open him up and then-- and Shizuo’s imagination skids out on
practicality, his attention pulling back into focus on the necessary
preparation demanded by reality instead of the hazy convenience of fantasy. He
draws back from the flush of Izaya’s skin, blinking fast as if that will help
steady his thoughts, and when he takes a breath it’s with all the weight of
intention behind it.
“We need--” and his voice gives way, inexperience and embarrassment winning out
over his best attempt at practical considerations. He can feel his cheeks go
hot, can feel his chest go tight on self-consciousness. He clears his throat
and makes another attempt at speech. “Don’t we?”
Izaya’s mouth twitches, the corner of his lips pulling up into a flicker of
amusement that touches his eyes with some hint of their usual color. “Yes,” he
says, and his voice is taut, too, there’s the strain of laughter in his throat
as clearly as it is in his eyes. “We do, in fact, need lube for this.” His
lashes dip, his smile pulls wider, and Shizuo would be burning with
embarrassment were it not for the fact that Izaya’s teasing usually indicates
the presence of some kind of plan on the other’s part.
This is, thankfully, no exception. “Luckily for us both I have the foresight
you lack,” Izaya tells him, and angles his head to cast his gaze towards the
table next to the door. “In the drawer.”
“Why do you have it here?” but Shizuo isn’t waiting for an answer; he doesn’t
really care, not when the result is so perfectly convenient for him at the
moment. He pushes up onto his knees, leaving Izaya sprawled on the floor under
him and reaching up to tug at the front of his vest while Shizuo reaches for
the drawer thus indicated.
“I’m always prepared.” Izaya sits up, reaches out; his fingers catch at
Shizuo’s collar, his thumb weights against the catch of the other’s tie. Shizuo
can feel the tension slip free, can hear the fabric rustle as it falls to the
floor. “People are easy to predict.” Shizuo’s fingers close on the smooth
weight of a bottle in the otherwise empty drawer and Izaya’s touch drags up
over his collar, the other’s fingers slipping down inside the crisp edges of
the fabric to press over Shizuo’s skin as Izaya unfastens the topmost button of
his shirt.
Shizuo smiles, warmth irrepressible in him even if he cared to try. “You’re
unbelievable,” he says, meaning it in the best of ways. He knocks the drawer
half-shut with a careless hand, turning back to set the bottle aside and
consider Izaya again; but the other appears wholly absorbed in the path he’s
making down the half-opened front of Shizuo’s shirt, and it doesn’t look like
any helpful clarification will be coming from him for the embarrassed self-
consciousness Shizuo can feel drawing tense in his chest again. Shizuo takes a
breath, bracing his shoulders as if that will do anything to ease his stress;
and then he gives the attempt up completely, and blurts “What about, uh.
Protection?”
Izaya lifts his gaze from Shizuo’s shirt, his expression so utterly blank it
conveys infinitely more disdain than a more effusive reaction would. “I’m
exactly as likely to get pregnant as you are, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo’s face goes crimson, the whole of his cheeks burning with embarrassment
as much from the need for clarification as at the flat condescension in Izaya’s
tone, as if Shizuo doesn’t understand the basic principles of biology. “That’s
not what I mean,” he starts, because he might not have any hands-on experience
but he knows there are things to worry about beyond the basic physical
necessities, and however painfully hot self-consciousness is in him he can’t
afford to mess this up.
Izaya’s mouth tenses, his jaw sets into a fixed line of tension. At Shizuo’s
shirt his hands tighten, his fingers drawing to fists against the fabric. “Well
then,” he says, his voice frigid and his shoulders tense. He sounds nearly calm
but if there is any calm in his expression it’s what comes before a storm, it’s
the strained anticipation just before a lightning strike, and Shizuo can feel
the whole of his body shiver with a premonition of danger. “Who have you been
fucking?”
Shizuo’s mouth falls open. For a moment he can’t even find the words for
rejection of the absolute absurdity of the idea that he would have so much as
kissed anyone but exactly the person in front of him, as if he has ever in all
his life wanted to be anywhere but as close to Izaya as he can be. “What?” he
manages, finally, shock taking over his voice to offer a reply while his
thoughts are still white and blank with the shock of Izaya’s question. “No
one.” Izaya’s still staring at him unblinkingly, his eyes as dark with
irritation as with heat, but there’s the tiniest shift in his shoulders as some
of the tension in him gives way at Shizuo’s response. “What the hell Izaya, why
would you--”
“Then we don’t have anything to worry about,” Izaya cuts him off. He doesn’t
look away from Shizuo’s gaze; there’s a shift at his mouth, the movement of a
swallow in his throat. “If you haven’t slept with anyone.”
Oh. Shizuo’s heart skips, his blood goes hot in his veins; but he has to ask,
he has to be sure before he lets himself relax into the implication of Izaya’s
statement. “So you,” he starts, and then has to pause to find his voice again
from around the rising pressure of possessive happiness against his chest. “You
haven’t either?”
“No,” Izaya says, direct and undisguised, and Shizuo can’t find air for his
lungs from the glow of warmth in him, from the bright certainty that he’s
yours, you’ll be his first, you’re the only one who-- “I’m as pure and virginal
as you could wish, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo snorts, amusement so warm on spreading delight that he doesn’t even try
to hold it back. “You’ve never been pure a day in your life.”
“Mm.” Izaya’s mouth is curving, tugging at the corner into the threat of a
smile; the dark in his eyes is nothing but heat, now. “Well. Virginal, then.”
His gaze drops to the hold he has on Shizuo’s shirt, his hands ease from their
brief tension. “You don’t need to worry about a condom, Shizuo.”
Shizuo lets a breath go along with the last of his tension. “Okay,” he says,
but that’s not enough, his whole body is aching with gratitude for Izaya’s
smile, for Izaya’s touch, for the certainty that Izaya is his, has been, will
be, is, right now, as he has never been for anyone else. Shizuo ducks his head
in towards Izaya’s shoulder, the burn at his cheeks demanding cover and the
ache in his chest demanding closeness, and presses his face in against the soft
of Izaya’s shirt as he breathes in licorice to fill all the inside of his
chest. “I’m glad.”
“I don’t know how you thought anything else.” Izaya’s fingers ease from the
front of Shizuo’s undone shirt and come up to push the sleeves off the other’s
shoulders. “I hadn’t even kissed anyone until a few days ago.” Shizuo shrugs
free of his shirt, lets Izaya push the cloth down and off his arms, and then
his hands are free and he can reach out to fit his fingers against the curve of
the other’s waist instead. “Did you think I was paying for information with my
body?”
“No.” Izaya shifts as he lets Shizuo’s shirt drop to the floor, moving his arms
to work them free of his coat, and Shizuo shudders an exhale and catches his
fingers under Izaya’s shirt, reaching for the warmth that always comes with
fitting the pressure of his hand to the heat of Izaya’s body. “But you made it
sound like you knew what you were doing.”
“Yes,” Izaya drawls, his fingers coming up to drag through Shizuo’s hair, to
flex against the back of the other’s head like he’s trying to pull him in
closer. “There’s this amazing invention called porn, Shizuo, you can learn all
kinds of things without personal experience.” He’s smiling, nearly laughing,
Shizuo can hear the thrum of it on Izaya’s voice without seeing his face, and
when he shifts it’s to lean backwards without easing his hold on Shizuo’s hair
to urge the other down with him as he moves to lie across the floor.
“You can touch yourself too.” Izaya is looking up at Shizuo, watching the
other’s face with his mouth curving onto the suggestion of a smile as he
reaches for the front of his own jeans without looking. “You must have been
really suffering all this time if you haven’t even been jerking off.”
“I have been,” Shizuo blurts, the rejection of this absurd premise so
instantaneous he doesn’t even have time to think himself into embarrassment
about the weight of that admission on his tongue. It doesn’t feel like a huge
confession -- it’s not like it’s the first time he’s admitted exactly this to
Izaya -- but Izaya’s lashes flutter, his breathing gusts out of him in an
exhale so hard it’s almost a groan, and for a sudden, brief moment Shizuo’s
imagination flickers to heat, suggests Izaya lying across his bed all pale skin
and flushed cheeks, dark lashes settled over shadowed eyes and those fingers
working over himself, his throat tensing over the shape of a gasp, a moan, of
Shizuo’s name breaking apart to heat in his throat. His attention drops down,
involuntarily catching at the strain of tension underneath Izaya’s stilled
hands at his jeans, and when he speaks it’s without thinking at all, without
giving embarrassment time to gain traction on his thoughts. “Have you?”
“No,” Izaya says. Shizuo looks back up to his face, surprise knocking his brief
fantasy free; and then he sees the flat look Izaya is giving him and the
tension of repressed amusement at the corner of his mouth. “No, Shizuo, I’ve
spent my entire teenage life without ever touching myself, the truth comes out
at last. Now you know why I’m so desperate.”
“You’re joking.”
Izaya huffs and rolls his eyes. “Yes, I am joking. Would you like me to spell
out the details of my fantasies for you instead?” and Shizuo can feel a wave of
heat hit him at the very idea, even framed as the mocking taunt it is under the
circumstances. Izaya’s voice wrapping around explicit details of his own
imagination, unveiling the shape of his unspoken desires, of the routes his
imagination follows when left unrestrained; Shizuo thinks that would be worth a
fantasy of his own indulgence all by itself. Izaya shifts against the floor,
his knee angling wider under Shizuo; his lashes are dipping over his eyes
again, his throat is working over heat, and when he speaks again his voice is
slipping down into shadow, purring out of the taut strain of mockery and into
the resonance of seduction. “I could give you ideas for what you could do to me
right now.”
Shizuo’s chest tightens, his breathing catches; but “No,” is what he says, and
then he’s reaching for Izaya’s jeans, pressing his fingers close against the
other’s against the fastenings of the denim. “Later.”
“Okay,” Izaya says. “I’ll leave it to you this time” and he is, he’s drawing
his hand back to let it fall slack to the floor as Shizuo closes his fingers
against the pull of Izaya’s zipper. It’s an easy process, undoing a zipper and
then reaching to slide his fingers inside the give of fabric to pull across
bare skin; but Shizuo’s heart is pounding in his chest, and his hands are
steady but his breathing is shaky, he’s all but gasping for air as Izaya arches
off the floor to grant him the leeway to draw the other’s clothes off his legs.
Shizuo’s fingers drag over skin, his touch dragging over the heat of Izaya’s
hips; and then he’s pulling, and Izaya’s clothes are sliding and there’s just
Izaya himself, flushed skin laid bare for Shizuo’s view. Shizuo’s focus
fractures, scattering apart like leaves in a high wind at this immediacy of
what he’s only ever fantasized about before, at Izaya lying in front of him
half-dressed and panting and hard, his cock flushed and curving up towards the
rumpled edge of his shirt and his stomach trembling with tension and beautiful,
he’s so beautiful, all Shizuo’s imagination could never match how striking
Izaya looks like this. Shizuo’s dropping his hold at the other’s clothes, his
attention to his previous pursuit entirely abandoned to the glow of
appreciation so hot in his chest, because he has to reach out instead, has to
press his fingers to Izaya’s hip and--and Izaya gasps, straining on a sudden
inhale as his hips buck up in a reflexive, half-formed attempt to press closer,
and Shizuo can’t find air for his lungs and is sure he doesn’t need it.
“Izaya,” he says, and it’s a prayer, almost, it’s appreciation and adoration
and all the starstruck breathlessness of facing absolute perfection. Shizuo’s
chest is aching, his fingers are tightening against Izaya’s hip, and he wants
to lean closer, wants to press his lips to Izaya’s stomach, wants to kiss at
the sharp curve of the other’s hip and slide his mouth sideways so he can part
his lips and press his tongue against--
“Are you going to just stare?” Izaya asks, his voice sharp and clear against
the haze of distraction that has seized Shizuo’s thoughts. “Or do you just not
know what to do?”
“What?” Shizuo lifts his head, his focus still dazed out of his control, and
Izaya is watching him, his cheeks flushed to pink and his lips parted on the
pace of his breathing. He looks warm, looks hot, looks breathless and strained
and desperate, and Shizuo wants everything of him all at once, the give of his
mouth and the tremor along his thighs and the arch of pleasure that goes
through him every time Shizuo’s fingers trail over his skin. There’s an ache in
Shizuo’s chest, pressure weighting against his heart until it’s hard to
breathe, until it’s hard to think; but Izaya is watching him with the tension
of want shimmering behind his eyes, and Shizuo would do anything to satisfy
that.
“Fuck.” He shakes his head, pushes aside half-formed fantasies and overheated
daydreams at once, and then he looks down to dedicate his attention to getting
Izaya’s clothes the rest of the way off him. There are some complexities, the
struggle of working the other’s shoes off and then pulling at the tangle Shizuo
has made of Izaya’s jeans; but then the clothes come free, and Izaya’s letting
his legs fall open like an invitation, and Shizuo can’t resist the temptation
of the offer. He’s still wearing too much himself, and Izaya’s shirt is caught
up around the curve of his waist instead of stripped off him properly; but
Izaya’s reaching out for him, his outstretched arms making a path for Shizuo to
follow, and Shizuo is leaning forward in helpless obedience, bracing himself
with a hand against the floor under them as Izaya’s hands wind into his hair,
as Izaya turns his face up for the press of Shizuo’s mouth against his. He’s
hot against Shizuo’s lips, he tastes like bitter and rich and sweet all
together, and Shizuo can’t help the way his body cants forward, can’t hold back
the reflexive arc of motion his hips take to grind against Izaya under him. He
can feel Izaya pressing hard against his stomach, can catch the thrum of the
other’s groan of response against his tongue, and the heat that hits him is
like a physical force, jolting through the whole of his body like it’s trying
to unmake him, as if to pull him apart until he’s nothing but heat and want,
until he’s nothing but friction to melt against every inch of Izaya’s body.
“Oh,” Shizuo says, and “fuck” and he’s moving again, he can’t stop himself, his
body is seeking out a rhythm even though the action is futile with his clothes
still in the way. Izaya’s lashes are weighting over his eyes, his legs are
tensing around Shizuo’s hips, and Shizuo feels dizzy with want, can barely
think through the necessary steps they need to fumble through before he can
press himself forward and into the heat of Izaya shuddering under him. “Izaya,
god, I want you so much.”
“I know,” Izaya says, his voice straining so taut in his throat the me too is
as clear as if he had shouted it. His fingers slide free of Shizuo’s hair, his
touch catches hard at Shizuo’s hand and pulls, and while Shizuo is shifting his
weight so he can lift his palm from the floor Izaya is reaching out for the
bottle Shizuo dropped next to them earlier. “Here.” Izaya’s hold turns Shizuo’s
hand up, makes a cup of the curve of his palm, and then he’s turning the bottle
over to spill cool across the other’s skin, liquid slipping across Shizuo’s
hand and dripping past his fingers to splash against Izaya’s shirt. Izaya pulls
the bottle away, pressing the cap shut with his thumb before dropping it back
to the floor, and then he’s reaching to brace a hand at Shizuo’s shoulder and
shifting to angle his knees wider against the floor. “Do it.”
“Shit,” Shizuo breathes. His fingers are cool with the wet, his skin shining in
the light overhead; his attention catches against the slick at his fingers,
trailing over the familiar shape of his hand made novel with the weight of the
liquid, with the thought of sliding his touch between Izaya’s legs, of drawing
his fingers over the other’s skin, of pushing to fit his fingers inside the
pressure of the other’s body. Izaya moves again, his legs spreading wider
still, and when Shizuo looks down he can see the strain against the inside line
of the other’s thighs, can see the unmarked pale of Izaya’s skin like it’s
waiting for his touch, like it’s ready to bruise at a too-careless motion. His
chest tenses, his breathing catches. “I’m going to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” Izaya sounds certain, sounds steady even with his legs trembling
from the open angle he has them spread to. He touches his fingers to his
stomach, trails idle friction across the skin as his shirt hitches up higher by
a half-inch. “I’ve been practicing, Shizuo, I can take it.”
Shizuo’s groan goes sideways in his throat, turning over onto almost laughter
as his body flushes tense at the image of Izaya spilling liquid over his own
fingers, of Izaya working his touch inside himself while thinking of Shizuo
over him, of Shizuo inside him. “Stop saying that, it’s distracting.”
“Stop stalling,” Izaya shoots back, his voice straining on the edge of
frustrated heat. “Just touch me, Shizu--” and Shizuo does, immediately,
reaching out in such instant obedience to Izaya’s demand that the drag of his
fingers over the other’s skin breaks the sound of his name off into a sudden,
startled hiss of an inhale. Izaya’s legs flex, his whole body tenses for a
moment of anticipation, but Shizuo doesn’t hesitate, can’t hesitate now that
he’s moving, because his hand is against Izaya and he’s pushing against soft
skin and--and he’s sliding inside, Izaya is giving way and Shizuo’s touch is
thrusting into him and Shizuo’s struggling for air, his lungs are straining his
inhale into a startled gasp because Izaya is warm, he’s hot, he’s soft and
tight and Shizuo’s never felt anything so warm before in all his life.
“Oh,” he gasps, his voice turning over inside his chest as his hand stalls, as
his breathing catches against the sudden weight of sensation in his veins.
Izaya’s hand comes out, his fingers make a fist at the front of Shizuo’s shirt,
but Shizuo can’t look up, can’t look away from the tremor in Izaya’s thighs and
the flush across pale skin and the press of his touch inside Izaya so close he
can feel the shudder of reaction tightening the other’s body around him.
“Izaya, fuck.”
“Shizuo,” Izaya groans, lower and more strained than Shizuo has ever before
heard his voice, and he’s reaching up with his other hand too, his hands
tightening at Shizuo’s shirt to hold the other steady. “Shizuo.” Shizuo takes a
breath, and lifts his head; and Izaya is staring at him, his eyes wide and
blown all the way to black, his lips parted on the rush of breathing he’s
struggling through. His cheeks are flushed dark, as if to make up for the
absence of color in his heat-dark eyes, his throat working over each inhale;
and his hands at Shizuo’s shirt are twisting, his hold going desperate as his
arms strain to urge the other closer. Shizuo leans in, helpless to this
unvoiced command as much as he would be to a stated one, and under him Izaya’s
throat works, his mouth closes on the effort of a swallow like he’s bracing
himself.
“Keep going,” he says, and the words are harsh but his volume is almost a
whisper, his voice is trembling in the back of his throat in time with the dip
of his lashes. He looks pleading, sounds desperate, and Shizuo groans surrender
and obeys, pushing in against the impossible soft heat of Izaya’s body. Izaya’s
eyes go wide, his focus giving way as his mouth comes open on a silent jolt of
response, and Shizuo is staring, his attention skipping across all the details
of Izaya’s face as if he can press them into his mind, as if he can catch and
hold them perfectly clear in his memory as they are right now.
“There,” Izaya gasps. “Keep going.”
Shizuo does. His arm is shaking, he imagines he can feel the tremor of near-
panic and all-want thrumming into the spaces between his bones and blood, like
it’s settling in to make itself a part of him, but Izaya is arching under him
and clinging to his shoulder and he can’t help but obey, drawing his hand back
and sliding his touch in deeper than before, feeling Izaya open against the
force of his touch pressing as gently as he knows how. Izaya’s gasping for air,
his arms straining on the force he’s clutching at Shizuo’s shoulder, and then
Shizuo tenses his finger, pressing as far into Izaya’s body as he can reach,
and Izaya gasps, his head tipping back in involuntary reaction as his legs,
fingers, shoulders tense in a sudden rush of reaction.
“Fuck,” he chokes out, and Shizuo can feel the strain of the other’s reaction
clench around his touch, can feel the ripple of Izaya’s response without having
to read it off his expression, without having to piece it together from the
gaps between his words. He’s moving before Izaya has caught a breath to speak,
drawing his hand back to push forward again while Izaya is still starting in on
“Shizuo--” like the beginning of some breathless order. The motion is too fast,
Shizuo flinches at how fast his push thrusts into Izaya’s body; but Izaya’s
words flicker into a groan instead, his fingers clenching at Shizuo’s shoulders
as his cock twitches hard towards his stomach, and Shizuo can feel his heart
pounding with all the uncanny strength in his body as he watches Izaya shudder
with sensation around his touch. “Fuck.”
Shizuo takes a breath, feels determination settling around his shoulders as if
it’s spilling into him from the weight of Izaya’s touch. “Izaya,” he says,
breathing the other’s name like a prayer, like it can carry all the heat of
years of waiting, of wondering, of uncertainty made certain, made real in the
press of Izaya tight around his touch and the pant of the other’s breathing
loud in the apartment. He draws his touch back, still watching Izaya’s features
instead of the movement of his hand, but there’s not so much as a flicker of
hesitation in the other’s expression, nothing of panic in the way his lashes
flutter over that heat-hazed gaze up at the ceiling. Shizuo presses a second
finger alongside the second, fits the texture of his skin close against
Izaya’s, and Izaya makes a faint noise in the back of his throat, a whimper of
heat that aches all through Shizuo with the force of a half-heard plea. He
responds to that more than to rationality, patience giving way to the desire to
gratify anything Izaya wants, anything Izaya asks for, and he’s pushing inside,
his fingers stretching Izaya open around his touch while the other’s mouth
comes open on the force of his exhale and Izaya’s throat opens up on the sound
of a groan. Shizuo’s sliding farther forward, his fingers pressing deeper in
one smooth stroke, and he probably should slow down but Izaya’s knees are
tipping wider, Izaya’s legs are spreading open, and he’s trembling around
Shizuo’s fingers, his whole body tensing into waves of shivering reaction that
Shizuo can feel resonate all through him to tense in his shoulder and urge his
touch deeper, harder, whatever it takes to pull that involuntary heat out of
Izaya’s veins and into knocked-open pleasure across his face. Shizuo can’t
catch his breath, can’t find space for this experience in the span of his
everyday reality; this is more, brighter and sharper and softer all at once, as
if having Izaya underneath him has granted him an extra sense and all he can
manage to do with it is gasp breathless appreciation.
“You’re so hot,” Shizuo says, the words inane but the closest coherency he find
to capture you feel like fire, you look like art, I don’t know how to exist for
how much I love you. Izaya takes a breath, and lifts his head to blink himself
into focus on Shizuo’s face; even then his eyes are half-lidded, his lips
parted like he can’t recall how to breathe, his cheeks flushed into color as if
with the press of too-much winter sunlight against pale skin. He looks dizzy,
looks unfocused; Shizuo can see Izaya’s gaze flicker with every forward thrust
he takes with his fingers, can watch the motion of his hand printed into a
shiver of distraction over the other’s face as if Izaya is responding directly
to the weight of his touch. It makes his chest ache, makes his blood burn until
he wants to be nearer, wants to have more, wants to press Izaya impossibly
close against him so he can feel--
“Shizuo,” Izaya manages, shaping the word past the dip of heavy lashes and the
strain of effort Shizuo can see in his throat. His fingers at the other’s
shoulder tighten hard, pinning the fabric between Shizuo’s skin and his own
like he’s trying to will it out of existence. “I can take it.”
“I’ll hurt you” Shizuo protests, but his voice is weak even in his own ears and
he’s still pushing into Izaya, still working his touch deeper to draw another
shudder of reaction from the other, to pull the sound of another moan from
Izaya’s throat. Izaya tenses around him, clenching tight against Shizuo’s
fingers, and Shizuo shakes his head in reflexive rejection of the idea of more.
“You’re so tight, I can’t--”
“You can” and Izaya’s hooking his leg around Shizuo’s hip and pulling, the
force coming so quick Shizuo doesn’t have time to brace himself against it. His
weight tips forward, the inertia of his action jolting his fingers farther into
Izaya, and Izaya hisses a breathless inhale while Shizuo’s whole body flashes
hot with desire, with imagination, with the too-clear image of drawing his
touch free and fitting the span of his hips against Izaya in place of his
fingers. He wants it, he needs it, his whole body is aching with desire for the
friction and the heat and the softness so tight around his fingers, all his
instincts are telling him to fumble open his slacks and rock himself forward to
bring them as close together as they can be. But Izaya’s still tight against
him, his body soft and painfully fragile even against Shizuo’s slick
fingertips, and Shizuo’s heart constricts at the very idea of that heat behind
Izaya’s eyes cracking open on pain, at the idea of jarring hurt into Izaya’s
body instead of heat.
“You can,” Izaya says again. He lets Shizuo’s shoulder go, his touch dropping
to fit against the other’s slacks instead; the weight of his hand is almost
gentle, this time, the press of his fingers delicate as he catches at the
button and trails over the zipper. Shizuo can hear Izaya’s breath catch, can
hear strain fitting under the other’s voice when he speaks. “Come on, Shizuo,
don’t you want me?”
“Fuck,” Shizuo breathes. He can feel his resistance giving way, can feel all
the straining tension holding him back fading and failing under the gentle drag
of Izaya’s fingertips. He takes a breath, lets honesty fall from his lips at
the exhale. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I can take it,” Izaya says, a little too fast, a little too tense with
anticipation. Shizuo can hear the strain of excitement on the other’s words; he
doesn’t look up to see the smile he knows is starting at Izaya’s mouth. “Trust
me, Shizuo.”
Shizuo’s laugh is faint, more a gust of air past his lips than anything with
the form of audible amusement, but it takes the last of his restraint with it,
leaves his body free to thrum itself into the heat of anticipation as he takes
a breath and slides his fingers back. “That’s not reassuring,” he protests,
looking down as he rocks over his heels and reaches for his pants. “I always
get in trouble when I listen to you.” Izaya draws his hand back, closes his
fingers painfully tight at Shizuo’s hip instead, and Shizuo’s slacks come open
at a touch, as if his clothes are as anxious as he is to part over the heat of
his skin. He looks up, his mouth tugging into a smile in spite of his best
attempt as he meets the dark of Izaya’s gaze on him and the excitement easing
the other’s lips into a breathless part. “I should have learned my lesson years
ago.”
“Good thing you’re too stupid for that,” Izaya deadpans, and Shizuo has to
laugh as he catches at the top edge of his clothes to push slacks and boxers
alike off his hips. He considers being embarrassed, feels the first strain of
self-consciousness starting at the very back of his thoughts; but Izaya’s gaze
is dropping down, and Izaya’s mouth is coming open, and Izaya’s reaching out to
curl his fingers around Shizuo’s length and even the possibility of
embarrassment gives way at once to the drag of Izaya’s touch. Shizuo’s breath
rushes out of him at once, his body curving in towards Izaya under him like
he’s being drawn in closer by the other’s motion, and he’s reaching for himself
too, closing slick fingers in the wake of Izaya’s touch as his lips brush just
above the fabric over the thud of Izaya’s heartbeat in his chest.
“‘Good,’” Shizuo manages, fumbling for words while his palm slides slick over
himself. “For which one of us?”
“Both of us,” Izaya says. His fingers are drawing down alongside Shizuo’s, his
touch going secondhand slick from the lube; he has his other arm angled around
Shizuo’s shoulders, now, has his fingers tangled into a fist on the strands.
“We’re better together, Shizuo.”
Shizuo’s huff of an exhale is almost a laugh, his mouth is catching on the
tension of a smile. “You are such a liar,” he says, the words turning over into
affection in the back of his throat, and then he’s giving over speaking for the
focus he needs to look down at the drag of their tangled fingers. Izaya’s hand
flexes, his touch drawing a last surge of heat up Shizuo’s spine and a shudder
through his body, and then his second hand is joining the first to cling to
Shizuo’s hair like a handhold against some oncoming force. The idea steals
Shizuo’s breath, flushes a surge of heat through his cock, and underneath him
Izaya arches, his body curving to line up with Shizuo’s as if it was meant to
be there, as if it’s instinct guiding him into place. Shizuo lets his weight
tip down, angles himself into place; and then he has to look up, has to bring
his attention back so he can see the way Izaya is staring at him, with his
lashes framing wide eyes and the strain of anticipation trembling in the line
of his arms and the set of his jaw.
Shizuo takes a breath. “Izaya,” he says, and it’s not quite a question and it’s
not quite a plea; but Izaya’s fingers tighten in his hair, and Izaya answers
anyway: “Do it, Shizuo” with the same resonant certainty he had at Christmas,
and Shizuo is moving at once, his body responding to the command of Izaya’s
words before his mind has time to stall him. His hips come forward, he presses
hard against the other; and Izaya eases for him, and Shizuo is rocking forward,
and it’s happening, Izaya’s body is giving way to the slide of his cock and
Shizuo can feel every inch of movement, heat and friction and the strain of
Izaya tensing around him, and instinct seizes control of his body to rock him
forward hard, to thrust deeper, farther, to push as deep as he can get in one
fluid motion.
“Fuck,” Izaya’s gasping, and “Shizuo”; but it’s not pain in his voice, it’s
heat, there’s a low resonance dragging in his throat that Shizuo’s overheated
thoughts catch and read as more. Izaya’s leg is tight around his hip, he’s
arching up to meet Shizuo’s forward movement, and Shizuo is moving, is rocking
himself back and dropping forward to be closer, nearer, to fill his lungs with
the smell of Izaya’s skin while he fills Izaya’s body with the heat of his
cock. His fingers catch at dark hair, his palm presses against Izaya’s head,
and when he turns his head his mouth is against the other’s throat, his lips
are catching against the tremor of Izaya’s pulse against his neck. Izaya’s
shaking, Shizuo can feel his whole body quivering as Shizuo draws back for
another thrust; but Shizuo’s hand is in his hair, Shizuo’s grip is pinning him
to stillness against the floor, and then he takes a breath and Izaya fills his
mouth, his nose, his whole existence, and Shizuo can feel everything in him
giving way like a dam breaking. He makes some sound, reflex seizing his chest
to give voice to the heat surging up the whole length of his spine; and his
hips snap forward, and his breath rushes out of him as he spills over the edge
into orgasm. His vision goes white, the rhythm of his movement collapses, and
for the span of endless heartbeats there’s just relief, Izaya so close against
and under him that even the impossible aching want in Shizuo’s chest loosens,
and eases, and melts into the warmth of languid satisfaction all through his
body.
Izaya gives him just long enough for his vision to clear before he speaks.
“My god,” he says, his voice trembling in his throat but still, somehow,
achieving a condescending drawl. “You really are a virgin, aren’t you?”
Shizuo can feel his entire face go crimson against Izaya’s shoulder. “Oh my
god,” he gasps. “Shut up.”
“I thought it would be a challenge to take you,” Izaya continues as if Shizuo
hadn’t spoken at all. Shizuo lets his fingers slide free of Izaya’s hair to
brace a hand against the floor and push himself up to free the other from
supporting his weight; Izaya is still flushed when he manages to get a good
look at his face, his cheeks still stained with the high color of arousal, but
his mouth is twitching on laughter, his lips curving around a grin he’s not
making any attempt to restrain. “If I had known you would only take a few
seconds I wouldn’t have been nearly so worried.”
“You are such a dick.” Shizuo slides back and out of the grip of Izaya’s body;
it’s more than a little bit gratifying to see the way the other’s gaze flickers
out of focus at the motion, the way his laughter cuts off into some unvoiced
strain of response in his throat. “You came just from me pushing you against
the couch last time.”
“You don’t have anything to complain about if I come first,” Izaya manages,
regaining his briefly lost composure without any trace of embarrassment at
Shizuo reminding him of their previous interlude. “You’re not being left
unsatisfied.”
Shizuo raises his eyebrows. “Who said you were going to be unsatisfied?” He
settles his weight over his knees, shifts his steadying hold at Izaya’s hip.
“I’m still going to get you off, don’t be ridiculous.”
“It’s not the same.” Izaya’s mouth draws into a petulant frown, his lips works
into the soft of a pout. “I want to come around your cock, Shizuo.”
Shizuo chokes on an inhale, his attention scattering for a moment at the idea
of Izaya shuddering under him, at the way Izaya would feel tensing through
ripples of pleasure while Shizuo is still moving into him. If he hadn’t come
literal seconds before, he thinks the idea would be enough to bring him back to
arousal in the span of a heartbeat.
“Fuck,” he grates out. “You can’t just say things like that.”
Izaya’s smile flickers like electricity hot and sparking against his mouth.
“Can’t I?” he drawls, the words lilting into mockery over his tongue.
“No,” Shizuo tells him, and reaches out to curl his fingers around Izaya’s cock
without any further warning. It’s worth it just for the way Izaya’s eyes go
wide, for the way his head angles back on a sudden, broken-off groan, and
Shizuo’s smiling as he strokes up over the other, satisfaction and appreciation
spilling together to glow hot through his veins. “Shut up, Izaya.”
“Ah,” Izaya manages with gratifying incoherence. “You…” His legs flex, his
knees angle wider; one hand drops to grab at Shizuo’s wrist where the other’s
grip is bracing Izaya still against the slide of his hold. “No need to be
rough, Shizu-chan.”
“Brat,” Shizuo says, and he means it as a laugh but it comes out darker than
that, lower, dropping octaves in response to the color spilling heat all across
Izaya’s cheekbones and shuddering strain against the inside of his thighs. He
lets the other’s hip go, shaking off Izaya’s hold without even thinking about
it so he can reach down instead to slide his fingers between Izaya’s trembling
legs. Izaya’s hot to the touch, still open and soft from the stretch of
Shizuo’s cock inside him; Shizuo presses two fingers into him without
resistance, thrusting in almost to their full length on his first attempt.
Izaya’s eyes blow to dark, his mouth falls open as he arches up and off the
floor, and Shizuo can feel the rush of power run through the whole of his body
to see the way the drag of his hand chases Izaya’s breathing to a gasp, to
watch the thrust of his fingers knock Izaya’s expression to unfocused heat. He
doesn’t mean to be rough, doesn’t want to give too much; but Izaya’s moaning
over every breath, his legs tipping wider in invitation, and Shizuo’s fingers
are moving on their own to push deeper, to thrust harder, to find that angle
that will scatter Izaya’s attention to helpless pleasure. “Don’t call me that.”
“Apologies,” Izaya gasps, visibly struggling to bring himself to focus on
Shizuo’s expression as the other’s fingers draw up over his length. “I always
forget.”
“You don’t.” Shizuo presses his thumb up over Izaya’s cock, slides his fingers
in as deep inside the other as he can go. Izaya’s wet to the touch, sticky
against the very tips of Shizuo’s fingers, and Shizuo realizes what he’s
feeling at the same time his whole body shivers into possessive satisfaction at
the thought of his come inside Izaya, at the evidence of his pleasure caught
against the heat of Izaya’s body. His breathing catches, his chest opens on a
half-voiced groan, and when he speaks his voice is lower, darker, insistently
dominant. “You know my name.”
“Shizuo,” Izaya gasps, like a surrender, and Shizuo’s pleasure-sated body aches
with the gratification of it, with the relief of hearing his name coming undone
in Izaya’s throat while the other arches under the force of his touch. Izaya’s
lashes flutter, his lips part, and when he speaks it’s in a rush of
desperation. “Give me another.”
“What?” Shizuo glances down, his attention pulled away from the strain across
Izaya’s face to the give of his body, to the slick thrust of his fingers
fitting against the heat of Izaya’s entrance. “I’m going to hurt you” but he’s
moving anyway, sliding his touch back so he can angle a third finger alongside
the first two. It looks impossible, looks like a strain even Izaya’s overheated
demands can’t bear; but when Shizuo presses against the other Izaya’s breathing
spills out of him into a moan, and Shizuo’s pushing in deeper as Izaya’s body
gives way to his force, and Shizuo’s breathing is catching and he’s still
pushing farther and Izaya’s back is curving, his legs are flexing, his cock is
straining with heat under Shizuo’s hold and Shizuo has never before seen
anything as erotic as the part of Orihara Izaya’s lips on the shape of an
unvoiced moan. He’s going to hurt him, he’s sure, he’s terrified, he’s going to
go too far and push for too much; but he’s still thrusting deeper, Izaya’s
still thrumming into tension under him, and “God, Izaya” Shizuo breathes, his
voice pressed to a whisper by the heat in his chest, and Izaya’s entire body
convulses, all the strain in his shoulders and stomach and thighs giving way to
a long shudder of heat as his cock jerks and pulses to heat over Shizuo’s hold.
Shizuo’s throat tenses, his chest aching on appreciation so strong it verges
into pain, and he doesn’t pull away, he keeps his grip sliding up over Izaya’s
cock and his fingers pressing inside Izaya’s body and feels the way the other
tightens around him, watches the individual shudders of pleasure run through
the arc of Izaya’s spine and the angle of his shoulders to leave him trembling
boneless and exhausted against the floor. Izaya’s hand catches at Shizuo’s
wrist, his hold shaky and weak but more than enough to urge the careful slide
of Shizuo’s touch to stillness, and for a moment they stay there unmoving,
Shizuo tipped in over Izaya and Izaya staring blank unfocus at the ceiling past
Shizuo’s shoulder while he gasps through shuddering inhales.
“God,” he says finally, his voice rough in the back of his throat. His leg
flexes, his knee tipping out, and Shizuo looks down to ease his fingers back
out of Izaya as carefully as he can. Izaya still hisses at the motion, his leg
shifting back in as if to relieve the strain, but when Shizuo looks back up
he’s still gazing at the ceiling, still looking completely stunned with heat.
“I hurt.”
Shizuo flinches. “I told you,” he says. He eases his grip on the other’s length
so he can draw sticky fingers away. “I tried to warn you.”
Izaya’s mouth shifts, catches on the edge of a smile that can’t gain traction
against the languid blank of his expression. “I didn’t say I minded.” He draws
his leg in against himself, angles his knee in towards Shizuo’s; Shizuo rocks
back to let Izaya slide a leg between his own, and then he’s coming back in,
helpless to the need to be closer to the flushed satisfaction all across
Izaya’s skin, to look into the dark haze of the other’s eyes until he’s sure
there’s no regret behind them. Izaya blinks up at him, his gaze drifting across
Shizuo’s features like he’s mapping them under gentle fingertips, and then he
lifts his hand, slow, to slide his fingers up into the other’s hair and drag
his thumb over Shizuo’s forehead. There’s another flicker at his mouth, another
ghost of a smile, but this one clings to the corner of his lips, draws them up
to the soft of unstated happiness as Izaya’s gaze winds itself into Shizuo’s
hair alongside his fingers.
“I liked it,” he says, with careful force; and then, with his gaze dropping to
meet Shizuo’s: “I like you.”
Shizuo’s breath catches, his chest straining on the sudden rush of warmth that
surges through his veins, that presses against his ribcage like it’s trying to
expand beyond the limits of his body, like it’s trying to push the boundaries
of his self out to encompass the room, the city, the world, to wrap around
Izaya gazing soft affection up at him until there’s no gaps between them at
all, until Shizuo can feel the angle of Izaya’s mouth tugging at his own lips
without any way to tell the one from the other.
“I’m glad,” he says, and he lifts his hand to touch his fingers against Izaya’s
hair, to trail his touch through the strands with the appreciative care
cultivated by years of patience. Izaya’s lashes dip, his breathing catches, and
Shizuo is leaning in closer to him as if he can offer himself in place of air,
as if to fill his own lungs with Izaya instead of the so much less satisfying
weight of oxygen. “I like you too.”
Shizuo can feel the way Izaya’s body tenses under him at the weight of his
words, can feel the other’s fingers tighten in his hair. Izaya’s cheeks color
to heat, his blush so close Shizuo can feel it glowing against his own skin;
but his mouth is melting into a smile, the curve of it spreading soft over his
lips, and Shizuo can feel the press of affection in his chest break free into a
spill of delighted laughter against Izaya’s cheek. Izaya’s fingers tighten at
his hair, his grip tensing as he turns his head in to stifle Shizuo’s laughter
with a kiss, and Shizuo shuts his eyes and lets Izaya’s lips draw him into
silence.
Izaya’s hold goes gentle after a moment, but Shizuo doesn’t move away. Izaya’s
never needed to force him closer in the first place.
***** Taste *****
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Izaya says from the floor of the bathroom where
he’s settled himself to lean against the wall at his back. “I’ll just wash it
in the shower, you don’t need to make a big production out of it. I bet it
won’t even scar.”
“I don’t care,” Shizuo tells him without turning around from the array of first
aid materials he’s laid out across the bathroom counter. “We’re not doing
anything else until I get your hand bandaged.”
“Suddenly you’re all concerned for my well-being?” Izaya sounds amused, almost
delighted; when Shizuo looks back at him he’s smiling up at the other, the
curve of his lips sparkling bright behind his eyes. “You didn’t seem to be all
that worried fifteen minutes ago.”
Shizuo can feel his cheeks go hot. “All the more reason to do it now,” he says,
grabbing antiseptic and a bandage from the counter before coming back to kneel
against the tile in front of Izaya. The other has made minimal concessions to
decency, which is to say he pulled his briefs back on while Shizuo was
collecting their scattered clothes from the entryway; he’s covered,
technically, but between the open angle he’s making of his bare knees and the
heat-soft smile clinging to his lips Shizuo thinks he might actually look more
seductive now than he would if he had stripped off his shirt instead to leave
himself entirely bare for Shizuo’s gaze.
“I suppose so,” Izaya allows, lifting his hand to make an offering of the
languid weight of his fingers for Shizuo’s hold. Shizuo catches his palm
against Izaya’s and curls his fingers gently around the angle of the other’s
wrist; Izaya’s touch skims the inside of his arm, his fingernails dragging
ticklish friction in their wake. “I won’t complain about your priorities in any
case.”
“Kind of you,” Shizuo says, glancing up to meet Izaya’s gaze for just a moment.
The other is watching him, his focus completely given over to Shizuo rather
than to the weight of his outstretched hand; his smile is soft, his eyes half-
lidded with the same evidence of satisfaction clear across the angle of his
shoulders and the drape of his fingers. Shizuo can feel the desire to kiss the
other like a pressure against his chest, can feel the urge to lean in and pin
Izaya back against the wall with the friction of his mouth like a magnetic
force drawing him in for all that it’s only been a handful of minutes since
they collected themselves from the entryway to stumble towards the bathroom
instead. It takes a conscious effort of will for Shizuo to look away from the
dark of Izaya’s lash-shadowed gaze and the curve of his lips on that smile,
requires all the focus he can muster to duck his head and fix his attention to
the cut drawing a clean line across all four of Izaya’s fingers.
“This isn’t as bad as I thought it was,” he says as he spreads antiseptic
across the torn skin. “The way it was bleeding I thought this would be a lot
deeper.”
“I told you it was no big deal,” Izaya tells him, but there’s no judgment in
his voice; he sounds warm, indulgent, as if he’s more flattered by Shizuo’s
concern than irritated. “Don’t worry, my fingers will be pristine as ever in a
few days, just like you like them.”
Shizuo glances up, just for a moment. Izaya’s still watching his face; his lips
are tugging higher on one side, his smile drawing into a knowing smirk. Shizuo
looks back down.
“Like I like them?” he says, aiming the words at Izaya’s hand in his while he
sets the antiseptic aside and reaches for the bandage to wrap around the
other’s fingers instead.
“Mm.” Izaya’s voice is warm in the back of his throat, all but purring over his
lips. “Did you think I didn’t notice?” He lifts his free hand, ghosting his
touch just against Shizuo’s hair and over the back of the other’s neck, and
Shizuo’s breathing catches, his whole body stalling under the shudder of
involuntary reaction that hits him at the contact. “Give me some credit, I’m
not completely blind.”
“My mistake,” Shizuo says. His head is tipping forward, his whole body giving
way to the slide of Izaya’s fingers trailing across his skin. “After six years
of waiting and still being the one to confess I thought maybe I could slip
something past you.”
Izaya’s touch stalls for a moment, his hand tensing for a heartbeat before he
resumes trailing his fingertips against the ends of Shizuo’s hair, just along
the collar of the other’s thin undershirt. “Maybe I just wanted you to confess
first,” he says, his thumb sliding up against Shizuo’s scalp while his fingers
spread wide and drag against the edge of the shirt. “You should have figured
that out yourself, Shizu-chan, clearly you’re the unobservant one here.”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “Clearly.” When he glances up through his hair Izaya’s
cheeks are flushed with unusual color, his mouth set into a line like he’s
trying to hold himself to composure through willpower alone. “It was my fault
for waiting so long. Sorry.”
“Right,” Izaya says, tossing his head to shake his hair back from his face
without meeting Shizuo’s gaze. “Apology accepted, I suppose.”
Shizuo smiles and looks back down to Izaya’s injured hand so he can wrap the
bandage through one more pass and twist the end in under itself to hold it in
place. It’s just as he’s closing his hand into a gentle weight around Izaya’s
that the other takes a breath and speaks in a low tone like he’s afraid of
being overheard. “Six years?”
Shizuo looks up. Izaya’s watching him now, his cheeks capitulating to the red
of a blush and his lower lip caught in his teeth as he worries at it; but his
eyes are focused, his gaze intent on Shizuo’s face.
Shizuo doesn’t look away. “Yeah.” He tightens his hold on Izaya’s hand, feels a
smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “I was an idiot.”
Izaya’s lips curve into a sudden, startled smile. “As long as you know,” he
says, but the force of the words is completely undone by the curve of his lips
and the shimmer of barely-held-back laughter in his throat. His eyes are bright
with amusement even before he turns his head up and tightens his fingers at the
back of Shizuo’s neck to urge the other closer. “Come here.” Shizuo obeys, is
moving even before Izaya gives voice to the words; it’s like giving in to
magnetism, as if closing that gap between them is falling into the place he was
always meant to be, as if he can only truly breathe if the air is shared out
between his lips and Izaya’s. Izaya’s mouth is soft under his, his lips parting
as fast as Shizuo’s make contact, and Shizuo lets his eyes shut, lets his
attention drift into a haze of heat made languid and calm with their recent
physical satisfaction. Izaya draws his hand free of Shizuo’s hold, reaches out
to make a fist of the other’s undershirt to drag him closer, and Shizuo leans
forward in immediate capitulation, tipping in until their bodies are flush
against each other with only the wall at Izaya’s shoulders to keep them from
toppling to horizontal. Even then Izaya seems more than willing to melt into
boneless heat where he sits: his hold at Shizuo’s shirt is going loose, his
fingers sliding up and under the fall of fabric to skim the other’s ribcage
instead, to trail sensation out over bare skin under his touch, and when his
fingernails catch and drag against Shizuo’s stomach Shizuo can’t help the way
he shudders with the friction any more than he can resist the electric heat
that prickles down the length of his spine.
“God,” he says, breathing the word against Izaya’s mouth like a promise, like
the shape of a kiss given the form of language. “That feels.”
“Yeah?” Izaya says, his lips curving into the edge of a smile. His hand slides
closer, his palm weighting flush to Shizuo’s skin. “Does it?”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “Yeah,” he says, and then Izaya’s fingers tense and
slide, trailing down to press at the top edge of his rumpled slacks, and his
breath catches in his chest as his shoulders flex with sudden adrenaline. “Oh.”
“I’d ask if it’s too soon,” Izaya says, his hold at the back of Shizuo’s neck
tightening as if to hold the other where he is, or maybe to brace him in place
as Izaya’s fingers slide down with uncanny grace to work inside the waistband
of Shizuo’s pants. “But I think I can find the answer for myself” as his
fingertips skim over flushed skin, as the friction of his touch drags a gusting
exhale free of Shizuo’s lungs. Shizuo can feel his cock swelling harder under
Izaya’s fingers, can feel the heat in his body spiking in instant response to
the other’s movement, and it really should be too soon but Izaya’s palm is
fitting against him, Izaya’s thumb is sliding down against the head of his
cock, and rational considerations apparently have no weight at all compared to
the persuasiveness of Izaya’s skin against Shizuo’s.
“Do you want to move?” Shizuo asks instead, drawing back just enough to blink
his eyes into focus so he can see the shadows clinging to Izaya’s lashes and
the heat weighting soft against his parted lips. “We could go to the bedroom,
maybe.”
Izaya shakes his head, his hair swinging to shadow his eyes for a moment. “No.”
His mouth catches and curves up at the very corner. “Later. After a shower.”
Shizuo huffs an exhale. “But this comes first?” he asks, but he’s laughing with
it, amused all in himself by Izaya’s abundantly clear priorities. He reaches
down for the front of his slacks, pushing the button open one-handed and
drawing the zipper down to give Izaya more space, and Izaya accepts without
hesitation, shifting his wrist down into a more comfortable angle as fast as
Shizuo can get his clothes undone. His fingers curl in around Shizuo’s length,
the pressure of his hand drags friction out into Shizuo’s veins, and Shizuo has
to lift his hand to the wall over Izaya’s shoulder to hold himself steady
against the heat that spikes sharp up his spine with the weight of Izaya’s
touch on him.
“God,” he groans, his voice dropping low and wide-open as his knees brace
wider, as his head drops forward. Izaya’s smiling, now, his lips curving soft
on the shape of a smile Shizuo is pretty sure is unconscious; Shizuo draws his
hand down to slide against the pale of Izaya’s throat, to trace out a path for
his lips to follow as he ducks in closer to press his mouth against the salt-
sweat clinging to the other’s skin. “Izaya.”
“Yes?” Izaya says, his voice skidding out over his attempt at an innocent tone
and making it a laugh instead. He lets his bandaged hand fall from Shizuo’s
shirt and reaches out for the other’s hip instead; his fingers catch under the
fall of the other’s undershirt, his hold bracing close against bare skin and
his thumb digging in as if to urge Shizuo to stillness. “Did you need something
from me?”
Yes, Shizuo wants to say. I need everything from you. But there’s no tension in
him, none of the desperate ache that has been such a constant in his day-to-day
existence before today; his body is still heavy with satisfaction, his blood
still saturated with languid heat even as his shoulders flex and his stomach
tenses on the rising pull of desire, on the second round of pleasure so close
on the first it feels almost like a continuation instead of a separate
experience. Izaya’s skin is warm under his touch, his shirt pulling loose
across his shoulder as Shizuo’s fingers draw along it; Shizuo presses his nose
against the tangle of Izaya’s hair, breathes in deep just under the curve of
the other’s ear, and when he speaks the words come easy, carrying the weight of
honesty with them as Izaya’s touch draws the tension of pleasure to a knot low
in his stomach.
“Just you,” he says, and his fingers curl around Izaya’s shoulder, his thumb
slides in to fit at the dip of the other’s collarbone like it belongs there.
“That’s all.”
Izaya’s laugh is warm against his ear. “Oh, only that?” He presses his fingers
in hard against Shizuo’s skin; Shizuo can feel the ache of it unfold to heat up
his spine, can feel the tension in his stomach twist over on itself and settle
to tremors against his thighs. Izaya’s grip around him shifts, his wrist
angling up; his thumb slips sideways to drag slick over the head of Shizuo’s
cock. “How modest of you.”
Shizuo would protest this too: it’s not, you’re everything, you’reperfect,
except that he’s losing track of the rhythm of his breathing, losing his grasp
on the pattern of his inhales as his chest tightens in reflexive response to
the weight of Izaya’s hold on him. Izaya’s moving faster, Shizuo thinks
distantly, or differently at least, enough that every stroke of his hand is
sparking like fireworks in Shizuo’s blood; and Shizuo can feel himself falling
into it, as if Izaya’s touch is collecting everything he is into the palm of
the other’s hand and melting it down into shuddering heat. Shizuo’s hips are
rocking forward, tiny involuntary motions to thrust against Izaya’s grip, and
Izaya is breathing hard against Shizuo’s shoulder but Shizuo’s touch at his
collarbone is gentle, his eyes are open and he’s watching his fingers tremble
at Izaya’s skin with all the force of possible strength that he’s not bringing
to bear on the other’s body. He wants to brace himself, wants to cling to Izaya
like the other is the last fixed point in the world to hold Shizuo down; but
Izaya’s holding him instead, Izaya’s fingers are pressing at his hip and hot
around him, and then Izaya’s wrist flexes, and the weight of his fingers drags
up and over sensitive skin, and all Shizuo’s awareness fractures and dissolves
for a brief, blinding moment. His lips are warm with salt from Izaya’s skin,
his lungs are full of the smell of licorice, and his fingers are at Izaya’s
shoulder, his grip breathlessly gentle even as his voice cracks into a groan,
even as his hips jerk forward to stall out against Izaya’s hold on him as he
comes over those deliberate fingers and that angled wrist. Izaya huffs an
exhale hard against the collar of Shizuo’s undershirt, his breathing spilling
warm against the thin of the fabric, and for a moment they’re both still,
Shizuo filling his lungs with the heat radiating off Izaya’s skin and Izaya’s
sticky fingers still pressing close against Shizuo.
“God,” Shizuo says, finally, hearing his voice crack into odd uncanny depths he
didn’t intend it to fall to. “Izaya, I. You.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums. His grip on Shizuo’s length eases, his fingers drawing back
and away; Shizuo collects himself into enough focus to tip his weight back over
his heels as Izaya loosens his hold on his hip as well and looks down to
consider the mess Shizuo has made over his fingers. “That was fun.” He’s still
smiling, looking as self-satisfied as if he’s the one who just had his second
orgasm in the last half-hour; when he lifts his wrist to his mouth the motion
is so graceful it takes Shizuo a moment to realize what he’s doing, and by then
Izaya’s already touching his tongue to his skin to catch the sticky spill of
liquid at his lips. Shizuo’s breath rushes out of his lungs at once, all his
body flushes hot as if sunlight has burst into his veins; Izaya’s lashes shift,
his eyes flicking up to catch Shizuo’s shocked stare before he blinks himself
back into heavy-lidded seduction as the corner of his mouth twitches on
amusement.
“You don’t taste half bad,” he says, making a show of licking up the side of
his wrist and over his fingers that is completely unnecessary and completely
distracting to every single coherent thought Shizuo is trying to piece
together. “Really?” is the best he can manage, and that just makes Izaya’s
smile pull wider and makes the corners of his eyes tighten in amusement.
“Really,” he says, and lets his hand fall to the hem of his shirt instead.
“Want to try for yourself?” His thumb catches under the elastic of his
waistband, his wrist shifts to tug it down by a half-inch; Shizuo’s attention
drops to the shadow of a sharp hipbone pressed close against pale skin, his
gaze following the line of it down while Izaya’s fingers draw down against the
fabric pulling tight around the outline of his own visibly renewed arousal.
“I’ve never had a blowjob before either. If you want to be thorough about
deflowering me you practically owe it to me, you know.”
Shizuo’s attention jumps back up from Izaya’s hips to the other’s face, his
breathing catches sharp in his chest. “Really?”
Izaya rolls his eyes and heaves a gusty sigh. “Yes really. My god, Shizu-chan,
how many times do you want me to spell out my virginity for you?”
Shizuo shakes his head, instant rejection of the topic while his focus is still
clinging to its initial point. “Not that,” he says. “Can I really go down on
you?”
Izaya’s smirk melts away. His lashes dip, shadowing over the amusement in his
eyes, and when he opens them again his gaze is blank with shock, his lips
parted on a huff of surprise. “What?”
“Can I?” Shizuo repeats, too warm with possibility to stop even as his cheeks
burn with self-consciousness. “You don’t mind?”
Izaya’s forehead creases, his mouth flickers on a smile that melts as quickly
as it comes, as if he doesn’t quite believe what he’s hearing. “What?” he says
again, and then, before Shizuo has a chance to reply, “No, I don’t mind, not if
you...you really want to?”
“Yes,” Shizuo says instantly, immediately, spilling the affirmative almost on
top of Izaya’s question. “Yeah. Please.”
Izaya stares at him for another moment, his eyes still wide and startled like
Shizuo’s done something completely beyond the realm of his expectations; his
expression lingers for so long Shizuo is thinking of apologizing, of suggesting
something else, of offering some kind of explanation for the years of fantasies
he’s formed around the heat of Izaya’s skin under his lips, the strain of
Izaya’s thighs under his touch, the taste of bitter and salt and shadow on his
tongue. But then he shakes his head, sharp, like he’s bringing himself back to
the present, and when he speaks it’s to say “Sure” as he pushes with more
intent at the elastic of his briefs. “If you want to I’m not about to argue.”
“I do,” Shizuo says, and he’s reaching out to interrupt the movement of Izaya’s
fingers, to take over the force against the other’s clothing as he fits his
hands against the angle of Izaya’s hips. Izaya reaches up instead, his hand
weighting to brace against Shizuo’s shoulder, but Shizuo doesn’t look up; he’s
focused on the movement of his hands as he draws Izaya’s clothes down and off
his legs to free the flushed heat of the other’s cock from the stretch of the
elastic. Izaya’s half-hard as soon as Shizuo strips his briefs off his hips,
his cock curving towards his stomach as Shizuo pulls his clothes down and free
of his feet, and he tips his knees open in invitation as quickly, sliding his
legs apart as he braces a hand against the floor alongside him and tightens his
grip at Shizuo’s shoulder. His skin is pale, the lines of his hipbones
collecting shadow like spilled ink, and Shizuo is reaching for that line,
reaching for Izaya, sliding one hand up under the loose of Izaya’s shirt and
bracing the other against the inside of the other’s knee as he tips himself
forward and down to match the level of Izaya’s hips. Izaya hisses a sharp
inhale, as if he’s startled again by Shizuo’s abrupt movement; and Shizuo ducks
his head, and opens his mouth, and catches Izaya’s cock against the heat of his
tongue rather than pausing for words. Izaya jerks at the contact, his exhale
catching and dragging into a choked-off groan of sensation, and against
Shizuo’s tongue his cock twitches, heat surging high to flush him hard against
the weight of the other’s lips. Shizuo’s skin prickles, his body going hot just
with the thought of it; but he’s too busy to pull away to give voice to the
appreciation, too occupied with sliding the wet of his mouth down over Izaya
all in one go. Izaya tastes like salt, the flavor bitter and sticky and
clinging to the back of Shizuo’s tongue with the afterimage of the other’s
first orgasm in the entryway, and maybe it would be unpleasant in another
setting but right now it just tastes like heat, like the burn of smoke and that
biting edge of the licorice tang that Shizuo has come to crave like it’s some
physical need in him. He presses closer, lets Izaya slide farther back in his
mouth, and Izaya’s fingers land in his hair, Izaya’s hold twists to a fist on
the strands as the other makes a weak, broken sound over him. It would be
enough to startle Shizuo into a panic in other situations, if he were less sure
of himself; but Izaya’s pulling him in closer, and Izaya’s hips are rocking up
to meet his mouth, and when Shizuo lets his hand slide sideways he can press
the flat of his palm against Izaya’s stomach and feel the tremor of the other’s
reaction coursing hot just under his fingertips. He draws back by an inch,
presses his lips close together before sliding in again, and Izaya makes a low
whimpering noise and grabs at Shizuo’s hair with his other hand as well.
There’s no question of what he wants, not with both his hands clinging to urge
Shizuo closer and his legs shaking under the weight of Shizuo’s touch; so
Shizuo tenses his grip, and shuts his eyes, and loses himself to the taste of
Izaya on his tongue.
Izaya doesn’t hold still. Even at the start, even on the first slick stroke of
Shizuo’s mouth, Izaya is arching up off the wall, his hips rocking up hard to
meet Shizuo’s lips in an instinctive motion no less strong for his lack of
traction. Shizuo can feel the strain flex across Izaya’s stomach, can feel the
shift of want against the inside of Izaya’s thigh; and when he presses it’s
against that resistance, gentle force enough to pin Izaya back to stillness so
Shizuo can set a slow-steady rhythm that falls in time with his heartbeat.
Izaya’s fingers wind deeper into his hair, Izaya’s breathing catches and whines
into bright edges of want over his head; but Shizuo doesn’t stop, and doesn’t
slow, and even when Izaya pulls his foot free from under Shizuo’s arm and
braces the inside of one knee against Shizuo’s shoulder Shizuo only notices it
distantly, a far-off action compared to the bitter salt and saturated heat of
Izaya over his tongue and filling his nose with every inhale. Izaya’s foot
slides against his shirt, Izaya’s heel braces hard against his spine, and
Shizuo’s fingers weight at Izaya’s thigh to hold the other’s leg open and
steady against the support of the wall as he presses himself closer, as he
drags his tongue up the whole salt-bitter length of Izaya against his lips.
Izaya makes a sound, incoherent heat wrapped around syllables that might have
been “Shizuo” originally; and Shizuo groans without thinking, appreciation
given voice in the form of humming vibration against the inside of his chest
and the line of his throat. Izaya jerks, gasps, drags at his hair; and Shizuo
does it again, his heart beating faster against his chest as Izaya’s cock
spills droplets of bitter slick against his tongue. Shizuo feels like he’s
drowning, like he’s melting, like everything in him is turning to languid heat
with the press of his lips to Izaya’s skin; but Izaya is straining against him,
his fingers pulling at Shizuo’s hair and his breathing catching sharp and
anxious in the back of his throat with every inhale. Shizuo’s moving faster, he
thinks, his rhythm giving way to the unvoiced command in Izaya’s hold or just
to the pattern of his heart beating harder against his ribcage, and over him
Izaya is finding sound from somewhere, “Shizu” and “I,” and “Ah” in frantic,
straining overlay. Shizuo’s hand is pressing hard against Izaya’s stomach to
hold the other back, his fingers are steady at the inside of Izaya’s thigh, and
in his throat there’s sound, at his lips there’s heat, and his whole awareness
is full of Izaya, warm and straining and shaking under his touch. Shizuo
tightens his lips against Izaya’s cock, sucks pressure against the other’s
length, and: “Oh” Izaya says, one bright sound of heat, and he’s coming,
shuddering hard against all their points of contact as his cock twitches and
spills hot salt across Shizuo’s tongue. Shizuo can feel the shudders of
pleasure tensing and easing under the weight of his hands in time with the heat
over his tongue, can feel the whole-body strain run through Izaya  to leave him
trembling with boneless relief; he swallows hard to clear his mouth and draws
back slowly, but even then Izaya jerks at the motion, his fingers pulling hard
at Shizuo’s hair as the other draws back and away.
“There,” Shizuo says, feeling faintly dizzy, like his whole world has
reoriented around the taste of Izaya on his tongue. Still, he’s pretty sure he
has the advantage on the other; all the focus usually clinging to the shadows
of Izaya’s lashes is gone, melted away into vague distraction barely enough to
meet Shizuo’s gaze when he looks up to Izaya’s face. “Satisfied?”
“Ah,” Izaya says, and blinks hard, like he’s trying to pull his vision back to
clarity. He doesn’t appear to be succeeding very well. “Mm. Yes. For now.”
Shizuo can feel his mouth tugging hard at the angle of a smile. “Think you can
hold off long enough for me to take a shower before you resume your seduction?”
“I don’t know,” Izaya says, tipping his head to the side in a sketch of
flirtation totally undone by the weight of satisfaction still clinging to his
lashes and parting his lips to heat. “You tell me, Shizu-chan, can you keep
your hands off me that long?”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “Probably not,” he admits, and leans in to press his
mouth to the soft heat of Izaya’s half-formed smile.
He does make it to the shower, eventually, but even by the time he’s done, his
mouth is still warm with the taste of Izaya clinging to his lips.
***** Better *****
Shizuo doesn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch. He had intended to finish his
shower, and rouse Izaya from the heat-dazed delirium the other seemed to have
drifted into where he sat on the bathroom floor, and maybe find the pajama
pants and spare shirts he stored here months before to change into while
Izaya’s in the shower. But Izaya’s still under the spray of the water when
Shizuo has changed, and the couch is empty and inviting, and it’s all too easy
to go from sitting to tipping sideways over the cushions, and then Shizuo is
closing his eyes and drifting into a dream too vague to remember and too warm
for him to care. He comes back up to consciousness to Izaya leaning over him
with a hand at Shizuo’s shoulder and a smile curving over his lips, and when he
suggests “come to bed, Shizu-chan, you’ll be more comfortable” Shizuo is more
than happy to oblige. He stumbles in Izaya’s wake, too sleepy and heavy with
exhaustion to manage more than a shuffle, but Izaya’s hand is caught in his,
and that one point of contact is enough to keep Shizuo on track as Izaya leads
him up the stairs to the second floor and the soft shadows of the bedroom
Shizuo has only ever seen and never entered. But he’s there now, following
Izaya to fall over the deep soft of the blankets, and distantly Shizuo thinks
maybe this should feel strange but in the moment it seems the most natural
thing in the world to kick his feet under unfamiliar blankets before reaching
out to pull Izaya in close against him. Izaya slides back over the sheets, the
whole length of his body pressing to fit close against Shizuo’s chest, and
Shizuo lets his arm fall heavy around Izaya’s waist, and presses his nose into
the dip between Izaya’s shoulderblades, and he’s asleep with his first
licorice-weighted inhale.
His dreams are peaceful for the first several hours of the night. Shizuo’s
exhausted, worn out multiple times over by the adrenaline of alternate panic
and pleasure that held such sway over him for the span of the day; it’s not
until the early hours of the morning that calm starts to give way to warmth,
that the hazy comfort of his imagination starts to flicker into heat more than
comfort. It’s a subtle change, fluid even in the space of his own
unconsciousness; it’s only as Shizuo is starting to come up to awareness that
he realizes how hard he is, that he can start to piece together the details of
what his sleeping mind has formed for him. It’s a good dream, he thinks in the
distance of his flickering awareness; Izaya’s with him, his mouth curving sharp
on a teasing smile and his fingers winding up into Shizuo’s hair. There’s some
suggestion of more to come, something they’re in the middle of, and Shizuo
presses his eyes closed the tighter, as if he can cling to the fading edges of
fantasy long enough to see the dream through to its conclusion. Izaya’s
flushing to heat, now, his cheeks coloring dark and his lips parting on the
gasp of his breathing, like Shizuo’s mind is trying to rush the logic along to
its result before he comes all the way awake. Shizuo shifts his weight, his
hips moving to grind against resistance in pursuit of that promised
satisfaction, and Izaya arches under him, his head tipping back on a moan of
“Shizuo,” that comes with startling clarity. Shizuo blinks, his focus scattered
for a moment of surprise; except he’s actually blinking, his eyes are opening,
and Izaya is actually there too, still pressed as close against Shizuo’s chest
as he was when they fell asleep. Shizuo stares, his dream-heated arousal
forgotten for the first moment of surprise, and when he speaks it’s to say
“Izaya?” as if to test the edges of this new, confusing reality.
“I hope so,” Izaya says, sounding strained and faintly amused and very, very
real, with the bright edge on his voice Shizuo’s imagination can never quite
manage. “Unless you wandered off to someone else’s bed while I was asleep.”
“Mm.” Shizuo blinks at the back of Izaya’s neck. “No.” His arm is still around
the other’s waist, his whole body warm with the glow of extended physical
contact. He ducks his head closer to press his forehead against Izaya’s shirt,
to breathe in a lungful of heat off the other’s skin while his dizzy thoughts
try to reconcile the similarities between his lost dream and his very present
reality. “You’re warm.”
Izaya clears his throat. “Hot, actually.” His body shifts under Shizuo’s hold,
his hips sliding back to shove hard against the other’s; for a moment Shizuo’s
coherency vanishes entirely, his focus stripped away by the ache of friction as
Izaya grinds back against him. “Which is completely your fault.”
Shizuo huffs an exhale, feeling all the air in his lungs straining on the first
surge of want that rushes through him at this reminder of his current physical
state. His other arm is pinned under Izaya, his wrist caught against the
other’s shoulder; when he shifts to pull it free he can feel the whole flex of
Izaya’s body against him as the other moves to help. Shizuo’s fingers slide
down, over the shift of Izaya’s startlingly fast breathing and the curve of his
waist, against the angle of hipbone sharp under fragile skin; Shizuo fits his
fingers against that outline, presses his hold to the sharp edge of bone and
warm skin as his memory catches up to his actions, as recollection unravels the
damp of sweat and the pant of overheated breathing and Izaya, the smooth of
pale skin at the inside of his thighs and the press of his fingers and the dip
of his lashes, the sound of his voice breaking over a gasping moan as Shizuo
presses into him. The thought runs electric up Shizuo’s spine and aches hot
against the flush of his cock, and when he moves to grind himself against
Izaya’s hip it’s an unthinking movement, instinct and reflex together guiding
his body instead of his blurry thoughts. Izaya shudders against him, his whole
body curving in immediate response to the pressure, and Shizuo’s heart
stutters, his breathing rushing out hard against the back of Izaya’s neck.
“Fuck.” Izaya’s shirt is under his fingers; it’s thin, the fabric barely a
barrier at all, but it’s still between them, still something preventing
Shizuo’s skin from touching Izaya’s. He lets reflex guide his touch, lets his
fingertips find the edge of the fabric and push up under it to slide his hand
over the tremor across Izaya’s stomach to catch at the rhythm of the other’s
breathing flexing his ribcage. “I’m barely awake.”
“You’re awake enough,” Izaya says. Shizuo takes a breath against the back of
Izaya’s neck, filling his lungs with the heat of the other’s skin and his mouth
with the taste of licorice, and when he presses forward to get closer Izaya
lets himself be pushed down over the bed, Shizuo’s motion bearing them both
down until he’s more on top of Izaya than next to him. They both shift at once,
Shizuo’s hips rocking forward at the same time Izaya shudders and curves under
him, and Shizuo feels dizzy with heat, like his thoughts are going tipsy with
the intoxication of Izaya so close against him.
Izaya gasps an inhale, his fingers sliding to grasp at a fist of the sheets
next to them; when he speaks his voice is breathy, the words struggling in an
attempt at his usual careless grace. “Is this not how you want to wake up in
the morning?”
Shizuo shakes his head in immediate surrender. “No,” he says. “This is fine.”
He rocks himself forward again and Izaya shudders under him, his whole body
tensing into a short, helpless action to buck his hips down against the
resistance of the sheets under him. He’s warm to the touch, all his skin
radiant where Shizuo touches it, and Shizuo doesn’t have to think about his
movement at all, doesn’t have to put any conscious effort into rocking his
weight back over his knees, into closing his fingers at Izaya’s hip and urging
the other back to meet him. Izaya arches into instant obedience, his shirt
riding up along the dip of his spine as he presses himself back hard against
the resistance of Shizuo’s cock, and Shizuo wants him, wants to strip off the
barrier of their clothes and slide himself into the heat of Izaya’s body and
feel all those half-formed tremors in the other’s shoulder pressed as close
against him as they can get. He ducks his head to press his mouth to Izaya’s
hair, to pin the dark strands against pale skin with the weight of his mouth,
and his lips are still against the heat of Izaya’s skin when he murmurs, “Do
you have lube here too?” like an offering to the strain thrumming across
Izaya’s shoulders.
Izaya lifts his head, turning to look out at the flat of a table alongside the
soft tangle of the bedsheets. “There,” he says, and lifts a hand to gesture;
but Shizuo has already seen the bottle set just in reach against the surface,
and he’s rocking back to reach for it while Izaya is still trying to steady his
balance under him. The bottle is cool to the touch, slick and smooth against
Shizuo’s palm; he braces it tighter against his grip to make sure it won’t
slide free, and then he’s coming back in before he’s even stopped to open the
lid, drawn helplessly by the need to be nearer, to press closer, to reorient
his whole existence against the flushed heat of Izaya’s body under him and
Izaya’s skin against his. It’s only as his mouth returns to the pale curve of
skin against the collar of Izaya’s shirt that he thinks to ask, only as his
mouth fits a kiss against the press of bone under skin that he finds voice: “Is
this okay?” because he has to ask, even if he can feel the yes trembling in
every breath Izaya takes under him, even if he’s already pushing the cap of the
bottle open and fumbling to spill liquid across his fingers.
“Yes,” Izaya says, his voice straining against his chest, and Shizuo shuts the
bottle again, dropping and forgetting it in the same breath. Izaya shifts under
him, his back curving and hips rocking up, and Shizuo lets his touch trail
against the curve of Izaya’s spine, lets his fingers slip under the waistband
of the boxers Izaya wore to bed the night before. “What do you think I woke you
up for?” Shizuo’s fingers slide down over hot skin, the slick of the liquid
coating them smoothing his motion; underneath him Izaya gasps a lungful of air,
at the sheets Izaya’s fingers drag at the fist he’s made of the blankets. “You
owe me, after yesterday.”
Shizuo huffs the vague outline of a laugh into Izaya’s hair. “Shut up,” he
says, embarrassment turned over to soft affection by the anticipation of
pleasure, by the tremor of Izaya’s body reacting to even this first touch.
“That was the first time, give me a break.”
“I will.” Shizuo’s fingers slide against Izaya’s skin, pressing against the
heat of the other’s entrance; Izaya tenses at the touch, his body flexing
tighter underneath Shizuo’s against him, but when he moves it’s to arch himself
backwards, to rock his hips up and press back against the resistance of
Shizuo’s fingers against him. Izaya tips his head to look back over his
shoulder at Shizuo; his eyes are dark, his lashes heavy. There’s a flush across
his cheeks, the same high color that is so shadowing his gaze; his lips are
parted even before he speaks, like he’s struggling to fill his lungs with
enough air to keep up with his need for it. “Prove me wrong, Shizuo.”
“Fine,” Shizuo growls, heat turning to agreement in his throat, and he moves at
once, letting the slick force of his touch push past Izaya’s entrance and into
the give of the other’s body. Izaya’s legs flex, his body tenses hard around
the push of Shizuo’s finger; but his lashes are fluttering shut, his mouth is
falling open, and when he groans it sounds like pure heat, like all the fire in
Shizuo’s veins is finding voice in Izaya’s throat. Shizuo’s cock twitches, his
body responding with involuntary speed to Izaya’s reaction; but there’s a
crease at Izaya’s forehead, pressure still straining across his thighs, and
concern wins out over arousal to stall Shizuo’s motions on hesitance.
“Are you okay?” he asks, hearing his voice skip high over panic. Under him
Izaya tenses, his whole body going suddenly taut with reaction; but when he
speaks it’s to say “Yes,” blurting the word with as much desperation as if he’s
pleading for his life. Shizuo takes a sharp inhale, concern responding to
Izaya’s tone more than the meaning of his speech, and Izaya flinches, tension
flickering across his features for a moment like he’s regretting his own
action. He turns his head, pressing his face down to the blankets so Shizuo
can’t see his expression, and when he speaks again it’s far calmer,
deliberately pressed to a level tone like he’s fighting for at least the
appearance of composure.
“Yes.” His fingers unclench from the sheets, his hand smoothing to press with
intentional force against the bed under them. “Keep going, Shizuo.”
Shizuo isn’t sure he should listen. Izaya’s still straining under him, his legs
still trembling and his body still tensing in reflexive waves of reaction
against his touch. But Izaya sounds almost panicked, like he’s more horrified
by the idea of Shizuo pulling away than anything else, and Shizuo wants to
soothe that away, at least, wants to ease the strain from Izaya’s voice and
undo the tension in his body into trembling heat instead. So: “Tell me if it’s
too much,” he says, trying to put to words what he’s not sure Izaya will
actually do, and he presses in farther, sliding his touch deeper by a careful
inch. Izaya tenses again, his whole body flexing taut under Shizuo’s; but when
he groans it’s unmistakeable heat at his lips, when he shifts it’s to clutch at
the pillow next to him, and when he moves it’s to push himself backwards hard,
like he’s trying to seek out more friction from Shizuo inside him. Shizuo has
to grab at Izaya’s hip, has to hold the other steady against the press of his
hand just to keep him from hurting himself; but his heart is pounding too, his
concern is evaporating to the surging heat rushing through his veins in answer
to Izaya’s involuntary movement under him.
“Shit,” Shizuo gasps, and he’s moving, sliding his touch back to push in again,
to draw that shudder of reaction up along Izaya’s spine once more. Izaya tenses
under him in perfect obedience, gasping into a breath Shizuo can feel burn
against his chest as if it’s his own, and his knees are sliding wider on the
bed, his thighs angling open like he’s trying to urge Shizuo nearer with the
invitation. Shizuo pulls back before thrusting in again, deeper still, his
touch granted greater access by the shift in Izaya’s position, and Izaya
whimpers incoherently against the pillows and untangles his grip from the
sheets to fit his fingers down under himself instead. Shizuo catches a breath,
the suggestion of the action more than he can take for a moment; and then
Izaya’s wrist shifts, his breathing spills out of him in a rush, and Shizuo
groans as he feels Izaya tense around him as the other strokes against himself.
His cock is aching, his imagination skipping frantic over the idea: Izaya’s
fingers closing around his own length, Izaya’s touch drawing out the rhythm of
pleasure over himself, and then Izaya gasps “Another,” and Shizuo remembers
what he’s meant to be focusing on in a rush. Izaya’s not straining around his
touch anymore, there’s no sign of tension against his legs except for the heat
Shizuo can feel running in tiny shudders of movement down Izaya’s back against
his chest; so he moves without hesitating, sliding his finger back so he can
set a second alongside the first and press back in. Izaya gives way to him
immediately, his body warm and easing open to the force of Shizuo’s touch, and
Shizuo’s moaning, “Izaya” falling hot from his lips as his fingers slide deep
into the heat of the other’s body.
It’s dizzying to be so close, to have Izaya so near; Shizuo can feel every
tremor of sensation rippling through Izaya’s body under him, around him, can
feel every stroke of the other’s hand over himself tense and flex around the
resistance of his fingers. It’s easy to match Izaya’s movement, to fit the
rhythmic thrust of his fingers to the drag of the other’s hand, and Shizuo’s
hips are moving too, his body rocking down in reflexive pursuit of friction to
match what he can feel trembling under Izaya’s skin with every motion either of
them take. His cock aches for more, his spine prickles with the pressure of
want crushing his breathing to a desperate pace, but there’s a satisfaction in
that too, a pleasure to letting this moment draw long while Shizuo’s whole body
thrums with desire for the friction to come, while he pulls helpless tremors of
desire along Izaya’s spine and spilling into moans in Izaya’s throat with every
movement he takes. His fingers press deeper, faster, pushing Izaya open with
nothing but answering heat by way of protest; and finally he takes a breath,
and collects his coherency back around himself, and slides his touch back with
careful intent.
“Izaya,” he says, the familiar shape of the other’s name coming breathlessly
hot against the back of Izaya’s neck. “I’m going to--”
“Yes,” Izaya says immediately, before Shizuo can even finish, the haste of his
agreement giving away his own enthusiasm so clearly Shizuo doesn’t need to ask
for confirmation. He pulls away instead, moving fast to make the ache of
separation as minimal as possible; as he sits up the blanket half-covering them
slides back as well, tangling somewhere around his feet where he promptly
forgets all about it. Izaya is turning onto his side, sliding his hand free of
his boxers so he can push the clothing off his hips entirely, and Shizuo gives
up on watching for the efficiency of stripping his own clothes off, pulling his
t-shirt over his head in one quick motion so he can cast it over the edge of
the bed to be as entirely disregarded as Izaya’s boxers. Izaya’s up on one
elbow underneath him, his legs bare and pale against the dark of his sheets,
but his eyes are fixed on Shizuo, his attention clinging close to the motion of
the other’s shoulders as Shizuo lets his shirt drop to the floor. Shizuo can
feel his skin prickle hot with self-awareness, like he’s suddenly aware of
every shift of his body that he usually disregards as unimportant; but he’s
paying more attention to Izaya’s clothes, to the weight of the dark shirt
catching against the other’s hip to still leave most of his skin hidden
underneath the cover of fabric instead of laid bare for Shizuo’s gaze.
“Take your shirt off too,” Shizuo says, and Izaya blinks and obeys, pushing
against the sheets to sit up so he can drag his shirt up over his head while
Shizuo shoves against the waistband of his pajama pants. He gets the weight of
them off his hips and tangled around his knees before Izaya strips his shirt
loose; and then all Shizuo’s attention demands that he reach out for the other
at once. Izaya’s beautiful stripped down to skin, the dark of his hair and
shadowed eyes contrasting sharply with the pale curve of his throat, the dip of
his collarbones, the angle of his waist, and Shizuo’s hands find their way to
Izaya’s body before he can think, one curling against the back of the other’s
neck and the other reaching for Izaya’s hip to brace him still as Shizuo leans
in for the part of Izaya’s lips under his. Izaya turns to meet him instantly,
his lashes dipping shut even as his chin comes up to make an offering of his
mouth, and his hands are on Shizuo while the other is still struggling free of
his pajama pants and kicking them out of the way at the end of the bed. Izaya’s
fingers brace at Shizuo’s collarbone, against Shizuo’s hip, and then he’s
tipping towards the sheets and Shizuo is following him, too lost to the heat of
Izaya’s mouth under his to care where they end up so long as they’re together.
Izaya’s warm against him, everywhere they touch skin presses hot against bare
skin, and if Shizuo is trying to pull Izaya closer against him Izaya is just as
quick to arch in too, to pin himself flush to Shizuo’s chest and gasp for air
against the damp of Shizuo’s mouth. Izaya’s cock is hot against Shizuo’s hip,
they’re pressing hard against each other with every move they make, and
Shizuo’s fingers tighten at Izaya’s skin, his grip steadying to drag Izaya
tighter against him as if they can somehow get closer even than they already
are, as if they might be able to melt into each other if he just pulls harder.
Izaya’s mouth opens against Shizuo’s, his tongue catching to slide over the
other’s, and Shizuo doesn’t see how he’s ever going to be able to disentangle
himself from Izaya long enough even to fit his hips between the other’s legs,
long enough to pay attention to the intricacies of fitting their bodies
together. He can’t get close enough, he thinks, he won’t be able to have Izaya
pressed this flush against his heart pounding in his chest if they’re--and an
idea presents itself, a solution so immediately clear it’s as if it formed
itself from the air rather than from any input at all on Shizuo’s part. He
tightens his grip at Izaya’s hip, his fingers sliding to fit into the dip of
warm skin, and then he musters all his strength, and pushes enough to urge
Izaya back by an inch.
“Here,” he says, struggling to find coherency for his tongue when all he can
taste is licorice and vanilla. “Turn over.”
Izaya blinks. “Why?” he asks, but Shizuo’s pushing before the other speaks,
tipping Izaya back over the bed with the ease of physical action rather than
verbal explanation. Izaya’s forehead creases, his lips part on what Shizuo is
sure is protest, but Shizuo doesn’t give him time to find voice for it. He
tightens his hold at Izaya’s shoulder instead, turning him over entirely onto
his far side while Izaya is still blinking into confusion, and then he’s
pulling again, drawing Izaya back to fit against him in a motion far simpler
than it was to push him away. It feels like magnetism, like letting some
outside force bring together what was meant to be one, and when Shizuo ducks
his head like this he can press his nose to the side of Izaya’s neck, can
breathe in hard against the pulse fluttering just under the other’s skin. His
whole body is hot, his skin flushing warm with satisfaction, and Izaya is
reaching back to clutch hard at Shizuo’s hip, Izaya is curving his spine to
grind hard against Shizuo with all the fluid grace that he used to pull the
other up out of his dream.
“Fuck,” Shizuo groans, because this is better than a dream, this is better than
anything his imagination could ever hope to provide. “Like this” and he’s
reaching for himself, closing his hand against the rigid heat of his cock and
stroking up to coat himself in what lubrication still clings to his skin.
Izaya’s trembling, his breathing catching loud against the quiet of the room,
but Shizuo can still hear his own heartbeat more clearly, can hear the way it’s
pounding in his ears in anticipation of what is to come. He’s achingly hard, he
can feel the tension of desire all the way up his spine and straining across
his shoulders; but that’s okay, it’s all okay, because Shizuo’s shifting
forward and Izaya’s tipping onto his stomach under him and underneath him
there’s just warm skin and the slick tension of Izaya’s body pressing against
the head of his cock. Shizuo looks down, just for a moment, to grant himself
the benefit of vision as he lines himself up;  and then his hips are canting
forward, and he sees himself start to slide into Izaya, and his vision is
melting away and his voice is breaking on a moan and Izaya, Izaya is trembling
under him, his whole body flexing and easing in a long shudder of involuntary
reaction as Shizuo sinks farther into him. Shizuo’s pressing closer, deeper,
his chest fitting against Izaya’s shoulders as smoothly as their bodies fit
together, and his arm is fitting around Izaya’s waist, his hand is spreading to
brace against the other’s chest as he tips them onto their sides so the bed is
taking his weight instead of the other. Their legs are a tangle, their skin
pressed close together, and when Shizuo breathes “God,” against Izaya’s
shoulder it spills hot over the other’s skin, his voice turned to liquid by the
shuddering pleasure coursing through him in place of blood. Izaya’s tight
around him, his breathing catching high and desperate in his throat; it must be
a strain, Shizuo thinks, but Izaya’s fingers are digging in harder against
Shizuo’s hip, and what Shizuo can see of his expression looks stunned, like all
the tension usually under his expression has been swept completely clean by the
intensity of the experience. Shizuo can feel heat spike higher in him, can feel
desire drag a breathless groan from his throat, and when he moves it’s
instinctive, a rocking action of his hips that slides him back by an inch
before he thrusts forward again. Izaya shifts with the force, his body slipping
by a half-inch before Shizuo’s hold steadies him, and then Shizuo’s sinking
deeper and all the air in his lungs rushes out of him in one helpless sound of
heat. “Izaya.”
“Oh,” Izaya manages, his fingers clutching hard at Shizuo’s hip, his voice
dragging like he can’t get enough air. He’s hard when Shizuo glances down, his
cock straining in a sharp curve towards his stomach; Shizuo lets his free hand
slide down while he maintains his bracing hold, trailing his touch across
Izaya’s hip and over the tension along the other’s stomach until he can ghost
his fingers across the flushed-slick head. Izaya jerks against him, blurting
“Fuck” as his whole body tenses to arch towards Shizuo’s hold, and Shizuo
closes his hand tight around Izaya without even thinking, without hesitating
over the strength of his grip. It must be too much, he must be pressing too
hard; except that Izaya is arching against him, his throat is opening up on a
groan of unmistakable heat, and Shizuo is moving instead of drawing back,
rocking his hips forward and up to thrust deeper against the tremor of reaction
running through Izaya’s entire body.
“Fuck,” Izaya gasps again, quivering helplessly as Shizuo strokes up over him.
His fingers are still digging in hard at Shizuo’s hip, his nails bracing tight
against the skin, but as Shizuo moves into him his other hand comes up too, his
fingers tangling to fist against the locks of the other’s hair and drag sharp
pressure over Shizuo’s scalp. Izaya’s back is curving, his whole body drawing
taut against Shizuo’s movement, but Shizuo doesn’t let him go and doesn’t pull
away, and Izaya’s gasping for air, his cock is spilling the heat of pre-come
across Shizuo’s fingers with every stroke the other takes over or into him.
“Izaya,” Shizuo groans, tasting Izaya’s name on his tongue, feeling the heat of
Izaya’s skin filling his lungs and spilling slick past his lips. Every breath
he takes fills his chest with heat, every lungful of air saturating and
satisfying some deep-down need he’s carried like a burden for years. “You. God,
you smell so good.”
“Shizuo,” Izaya starts, his voice clear for the span of a breath; but then
Shizuo strokes up over the heat of the other’s cock, and he can feel the twitch
of helpless reaction run through the whole of Izaya’s body, can feel the
reflexive jerk of motion as Izaya’s head angles back, his throat straining on
the same heat flexing so hard in his thighs, and when Izaya gasps an exhale the
name has turned into a plea, has gone sharp and brittle with desperation.
“Shizuo.”
“I’m here,” Shizuo tells him, because Izaya’s fingers are clutching at him like
he thinks Shizuo is going to vanish, Izaya’s whole body is straining against
him like he’s trying to pin Shizuo still through a full-body effort. Shizuo is
panting for air, his heart hammering in his chest, but he’s still moving, still
clinging to the rhythm formed between the stroke of his hand and the thrust of
his hips as his thoughts go hazy, as his awareness narrows down to just Izaya
against him, just Izaya shaking in his hold. “Izaya, I’m here.”
“I’m,” Izaya chokes off, the whole of his body flexing tight against and around
Shizuo. “I.” His breathing catches, his throat working over nonexistent sound;
and then Shizuo’s fingers slip over his cock, and all Izaya’s tension gives way
at once, “Shizuo” turned into an orgasmic moan at his lips as he trembles with
the convulsive relief of pleasure. He’s coming over his stomach, over Shizuo’s
fingers, his whole body rippling with waves of sensation as he gasps with heat,
and Shizuo can feel it, can feel Izaya shaking against the support of his arm
and can feel the waves of heat under his hold and can feel Izaya clenching
tight around him, his body seizing reflexive tremors hard around the press of
Shizuo’s cock. Shizuo can’t catch his breath, can’t find his composure; it’s
too much, it’s too immediate, to feel the full force of Izaya coming against
him as if it’s Shizuo’s own satisfaction, as if it’s his own pleasure rippling
out into his awareness to haze his vision out of importance. Izaya gasps a
breath, the reflexive shudders of orgasm easing to leave him languid with
relief, and Shizuo lets his hold on the other’s length go to brace at his hip
instead, to hold the warm weight of Izaya’s body steady while he moves harder
into him, feeling his control over his own movements slipping away as
satisfaction draws closer. Izaya quivers with each thrust, tensing in
involuntary aftershocks with every forward press of Shizuo’s cock, and all
Shizuo can smell is Izaya’s skin, all he can feel is Izaya’s heat, all he
can...and his mouth comes open at Izaya’s shoulder, his chest flexes on a
brief, unstudied sound of want, and his whole world fractures away, even the
details of himself dissolving into the friction of Izaya around him, the taste
of licorice on his tongue, the heat pulsing radiant through the whole of
himself. He is heat, there’s nothing else to him; and then he shudders through
a last wave of pleasure, and comes back into himself, his body shaking with
aftershocks of orgasm and Izaya breathless with heat in his arms. Shizuo lets
his grip at Izaya’s hip go, easing his fingers from the tension of his hold as
he sighs into relief, and then he shuts his eyes while they both catch their
breath for a moment.
It’s Izaya who speaks first, breaking the peace between them with an impressive
attempt at a casual tone only a little bit undermined by the way he runs out of
breath at the end of his sentence. “That was acceptable, I suppose.” His
fingers loosen in Shizuo’s hair, his hold sliding to drag gently over the
other’s scalp. “You’re a fast learner, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo huffs an exhale against Izaya’s shoulder without opening his eyes. “Shut
up,” he says, tightening his arm closer against the other’s chest. “I could
feel how hard you came, don’t try to be coy.”
“Mm.” Shizuo presses his lips against Izaya’s shoulder, pinning a kiss to
flushed skin as he braces himself to slide carefully free of the other’s body;
he’s as gentle as he can be, but Izaya still tenses at the drag, his body
flexing taut for a moment as Shizuo winces unvoiced apology. “I’m still sore.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo says, agreement and apology at once in his throat. He shifts
behind Izaya, just by an inch, enough to lift his head so he can look down at
the curve of the other’s shoulder down to the rhythm of his breathing against
his chest, to the dip of his waist and the angle of a narrow hip. There’s a
mark there, something not adequately explained by the shadows cast by the light
coming through the window; Shizuo frowns, reaching out for the odd coloring,
and it’s just as his fingertips skim across the pattern that he realizes what
he’s seeing with a swoop of horror icy in his stomach. “Shit.”
Izaya stirs. “What is it?” He turns his head to look, the motion languid and
heavy with heat; but Shizuo’s too caught by the grip of realization to even
afford appreciation to the picture Izaya is making of himself. He’s staring at
the shadows instead, at the pattern of bruised-in color rising under Izaya’s
fragile skin, at the set of his own fingerprints marked out like irrevocable
proof of his guilt, of his inability to touch anything without harming it even
with years of experience to train him to do otherwise.
“I hurt you,” he says, feeling the words like condemnation in his throat,
seeing the fit of his fingertips against the marks of damage under Izaya’s
skin. His throat tenses, his eyes burn; there’s pressure on his chest, it’s
impossible to catch his breath. “God, I’m so sorry.”
“Stop it.”
The words are a command, an order bright and sure enough to cut right past the
rising chill of misery in Shizuo’s veins and jolt him back to the present
moment. He looks up, his focus dragged unavoidably by the snap of that voice,
and Izaya’s gazing right at him, his forehead creased on irritation and mouth
drawn down into the sharp edges of a frown.
“Why are you apologizing?” he demands, his voice still crystalline-clear enough
to break past the distractions of guilt and concern alike and ring in Shizuo’s
thoughts with the bright clarity of a bell. “We had sex on the floor. Of course
we were going to get bruised.”
Shizuo frowns, looks back down to the outline of his bracing thumb coming in
dark against Izaya’s hipbone, to the lighter array of fingerprints from his
too-tight hold as they moved together yesterday. Izaya makes it seem
reasonable, makes it seem like a casual thing, but: “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know,” Izaya says, agreement so immediate it pulls Shizuo’s attention back
to the other’s face without any chance for hesitation. Izaya’s still looking at
him, his eyes still dark on Shizuo’s features, but his frown has eased, and
what tension there still is across his forehead is the lighter burden of
exasperation more than anger or the hurt Shizuo was so dreading seeing. “You
didn’t.” Izaya’s gaze slips up to Shizuo’s hair, his mouth tugging taut at the
corner; he twists in Shizuo’s hold, turning so he can lift his arm up around
the other’s neck and fit his fingers against the fall of hair at the back of
Shizuo’s neck. “I liked it. It’s a bruise, Shizuo, not the apocalypse.” His
fingers slide up higher, his mouth quirks onto the beginnings of a smile that
sparkles in the dark of his eyes. “Next time you can carry me into the comfort
of the bedroom before you fuck me senseless.” He sounds warm, pleased, like
he’s relishing the shape of the idea even in teasing; there’s no discomfort
anywhere in his expression, no shadow of unhappiness behind his eyes, and the
cold knot of panic in Shizuo’s chest gives way all at once, melting to the purr
of Izaya’s voice as if it’s the summer sun.
Shizuo can feel his mouth catch on a smile as much relieved as it is amused as
Izaya’s fingers slide farther up into his hair to cradle against the back of
his head. “Next next time, you mean?”
“Sure.” Izaya’s fingers twist, his grip tugging hard at Shizuo’s hair for a
moment; Shizuo winces at the pull, his attention scattering for a brief moment
to the pressure, and when he blinks himself back to the present Izaya’s smiling
up at him, his mouth soft and his eyes dark with warmth. “Stop worrying, Shizu-
chan.” Shizuo looks at Izaya -- the curve of his lips, the tangle of his hair,
the satisfaction heavy at his lashes -- and takes a breath, and obeys.
He’s sure Izaya can find better things for him to do, anyway.
***** Official *****
“You don’t need to look so terrified,” Shizuo reminds Izaya as they round the
corner to their end goal. “It’s just my family. You know them, you’ve known
them for years. It’s not like they’ve forgotten who you are.”
“Of course they haven’t,” Izaya snaps back at him, his voice catching high and
straining over the words. “I don’t think that. And I’m not terrified. I deal
with the yakuza on a regular basis, Shizu-chan, it takes more than this to
scare me.”
“Uh huh,” Shizuo says without looking away from the other. Izaya’s jaw is set,
his gaze fixed firmly on the street in front of them; his focus has been
steadily narrowing for the past ten minutes, until now it’s been blocks since
he so much as glanced at Shizuo. His lips are pressed tight together, Shizuo
thinks to keep them from trembling, and his face is so pale that even the
rapidly fading shadows of sleep deprivation under his lashes show up in as
stark relief as if it’s his high school graduation all over again. In another
situation Shizuo’s shoulders would be hunching, his whole body would be tensing
as if to make a wall of himself between Izaya and whatever threat is being
offered; under the current circumstances he has to press his lips tight
together to keep from laughing. “Yeah, I can see how calm you are.”
“Shut up,” Izaya grates without looking up to meet Shizuo’s gaze. “I’m fine.”
Shizuo takes a deep breath and sighs out an exhale that goes steam-hazy in the
chill air in front of them. When he reaches out it’s to touch his fingertips to
the tension against Izaya’s arm, to trail contact down against the strain
holding the other’s arms tightly folded over his chest as if to offer
protection to the fragile shape of his ribcage; Izaya flinches at the contact,
his shoulder draws up in reflexive reaction, but his head turns too, his focus
pulling away from the sidewalk in front of them to Shizuo’s touch at his
sleeve, and as Shizuo slides his hand down to curl around Izaya’s elbow some of
the strain eases from the other’s posture as well.
“It’s okay,” Shizuo tells him, sliding his fingertips in along the sleeve of
Izaya’s coat and down to the soft give of the fur cuff. Izaya has his hand
tucked behind the barrier of his far elbow, where Shizuo can’t reach his
fingers easily, but he can fit his touch in under the weight of the cuff to
stroke gentle comfort across the angle of Izaya’s tense wrist. Izaya ducks his
head far enough forward that his hair falls to half-hide his expression, but
the strain against his arm is easing fractionally, the angle of his wrist is
giving way from the painfully forced pressure he was exerting on it. “I’ll be
right there with you.”
“As my bodyguard?” Izaya asks. “I thought there was nothing to worry about.”
Shizuo huffs a laugh. “There isn’t.” His thumb slips over Izaya’s wrist to curl
around the sharp angle of it; Izaya’s hand shifts very slightly, drawing back
from the protection of his arm like he’s considering letting his defenses ease.
“Give me your hand, Izaya.”
“Why?” Izaya says, but he’s letting Shizuo tug his hand loose without pulling
back. “It’s colder like this.”
“I know.” Shizuo slides his fingers up against the inside of Izaya’s palm;
Izaya’s head tips down, his gaze tracking at their wrists for a moment while
Shizuo’s touch catches at the gaps between Izaya’s fingers. “I’ll keep you
warm.”
Izaya snorts. “What a gentlemen,” he deadpans, but he’s letting Shizuo’s
fingers fit between his, and some of the tension across his shoulders is
unwinding as Shizuo’s hand closes around his. “Do you say that to all your
boyfriends?”
“You mean to you?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya’s head comes up, his gaze finally
lifting to meet Shizuo’s. “I just did, so yeah, I guess so.”
Izaya’s mouth twitches at the corner. “Idiot,” he says.
“Brat,” Shizuo returns. They’re nearly to the house; Shizuo draws them to a
stop just alongside the front gate, turning in to face Izaya without letting
his hand go. “It’s going to be fine.”
Izaya looks unconvinced. “If you say so.”
“I do,” Shizuo says, and ducks closer to press his mouth against the crease at
Izaya’s forehead. Dark hair catches against his lips, the weight of his kiss
pins the strands to Izaya’s skin, and Izaya’s lashes flutter closed for a
moment, his head tipping down to submit to Shizuo’s touch, or maybe more in the
style of a benevolent ruler accepting deserved tribute. It makes Shizuo smile,
makes his fingers tighten around Izaya’s, and he’s just opening his mouth to
murmur reassurance against the other’s skin when a voice breaks into his
attention.
“It’s warmer inside, you know.”
Shizuo startles back by inches, adrenaline rushing to seize hard in all his
muscles as he steps back from Izaya in front of him; he can feel Izaya tense in
instant reaction, can see the shift of the other’s shoulders come up into that
wall again. His hand pulls against Shizuo’s, his fingers slide by a half-inch
in the other’s hold, and Shizuo reacts without thinking to tighten his grip and
keep Izaya’s hand tangled in his.
“Kasuka,” he says. “Hey.”
“Mom’s waiting for you,” Kasuka says, sounding as disinterested in this
statement as he appears to be in catching his brother kissing his best friend
on the front path of their family home. “Come in and shut the door.”
“Right,” Shizuo says, and Kasuka turns to head back down the hallway with the
same calm he always shows. Shizuo’s heart is pounding, his face is burning with
embarrassment, but Izaya is worse; he’s still tugging at Shizuo’s hold on his
hand, and when Shizuo looks back down the duck of Izaya’s chin is nothing like
sufficient to hide the crimson spilling over his cheeks.
Shizuo clears his throat. “Let’s go inside,” he suggests, and tugs against
Izaya’s hand in his to urge the other towards the door.
“Oh my god,” Izaya says, so softly Shizuo isn’t sure he’s meant to hear and
isn’t sure Izaya is going to come with him after all; but when Shizuo takes a
tentative step Izaya matches him, moving as immediately behind Shizuo as he can
manage without shaking his hand free of the other’s hold. It’s like he’s trying
to disappear, or maybe just that he really is attempting to use Shizuo as armor
against the dangers presented by a family dinner; it makes Shizuo want to sigh
and laugh at the same time. The tension between the two reactions holds level
as they make their way up the front path and through the door Kasuka left open
behind him; Shizuo leads Izaya into the entryway and steps clear of the door
before he pushes it shut in their wake.
“I’m home,” he calls, habit winning out over the embarrassed flush still
clinging warm to his cheeks. Izaya’s fingers tighten hard against Shizuo’s
hand, his hold tensing right up to the point of pain, and Shizuo is just
looking back as his mother calls “Welcome home!” from the direction of the
living room. “Do you have Izaya-kun with you?”
“Good evening,” Izaya manages, achieving something surprisingly close to an
ordinary tone given that he looks like he’s about to pass out where he stands.
Shizuo wants to catch his eye to give him a smile, or maybe to step in closer
even than they are to drape his arm around Izaya’s shoulders, but Izaya’s not
looking at him, and he looks so tight-wound Shizuo thinks he might collapse
entirely at something too startling. Shizuo thinks about letting the other’s
hand go, wonders if Izaya wouldn’t prefer to be left free; but Izaya’s the one
holding to Shizuo, now, his fingers pressing so hard Shizuo can feel the ache
running all up his arm, so he doesn’t make any attempt to loosen his grip or
slide his hand away.
“It’s just my mom,” he tells Izaya, speaking softly while they work their shoes
off by the front door. Izaya’s head is ducked down to give the motion his
complete attention; he doesn’t look up at Shizuo’s voice. “And Kasuka. You
don’t need to be so nervous, they know you.”
“They don’t know me like this,” Izaya says, his voice skidding out on audible
strain in his chest.
“It’ll be fine,” Shizuo tells him. “I’m here, it’s okay.” He tightens his hold
against Izaya’s hand, squeezing as hard against the other’s fingers as Izaya is
clutching his for just a moment. Izaya hisses an inhale, his breath catching in
his throat, and when Shizuo says “Izaya,” his chin comes up by a span of
inches, his gaze flickering up from under the shadow of his hair to catch and
meet Shizuo’s. The tension in his jaw has eased, his mouth has gone soft and
trembling with uncertainty; for a moment even his eyes are wide, his whole
expression left open and vulnerable in a way that Shizuo has only seen it a
bare handful of times in his life. It has the same effect now as it ever has:
there’s a pressure knotting against his chest, a hitch in the rhythm of his
breathing, and an urge all through his body to reach out, to catch his arms
around Izaya and hold back the whole of the world for a moment while the other
collects himself. And now he can, now he does; he lifts his free arm to loop
around Izaya’s shoulders, to press his fingers up into the soft of the other’s
hair, and Izaya leans in as quickly as Shizuo urges him, tipping forward to
rest his forehead against Shizuo’s shoulder and to take a breath against the
front of the other’s vest that shudders over the tension Shizuo can feel under
the weight of his hold.
“It’s okay,” he says against Izaya’s hair, speaking softly enough that the
words fall more to a murmur than clear sound.
Izaya huffs against his vest. “Of course it is,” he says. “It’s just dinner.”
But when he lifts his arm to reach around Shizuo’s waist his fingers clutch
hard at the back of the other’s vest, and Shizuo can hear the strain on the
other’s breathing as he inhales deep against the fabric. Izaya’s shoulders
tense, his whole body goes taut for a moment; and then he sighs, and lets his
hold go, and he’s stepping away as fast as Shizuo lets him go. His cheeks are
still faintly pink, his mouth still paler than it should be; but his expression
is composed, and his gaze is steady, and when Shizuo steps out of the entryway
to pad down the hallway Izaya follows with a pace so perfectly steady Shizuo
wouldn’t realize the other was stressed at all but for the pressure of Izaya’s
fingers digging in hard against the back of his hand.
“Hey mom,” Shizuo says as he steps around the corner of the doorway into the
living room. Kasuka is just coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water
in one hand and his phone in the other; he glances up at Shizuo and Izaya as
they come into view, then back to his phone without sparing much interest for
their arrival. But Shizuo’s mother is looking up from where she’s kneeling in
front of the kotatsu, smiling even before she sees them properly, and she’s
getting to her feet while Shizuo is still looking back to gesture needlessly at
Izaya next to him. “I brought Izaya.”
“Izaya-kun,” his mother says, her voice soft and warm enough to match the smile
she offers as she reaches out to catch Izaya’s free hand and draw him farther
into the room. Izaya takes a step forward at her urging, the action taking him
slightly farther away from Shizuo and drawing their entwined hands into clear
view instead of half-hidden behind Shizuo’s hip, but she doesn’t so much as
glance down; all her attention is dedicated to beaming at Izaya as she clasps
his hand between both her own. “It’s so good to see you again. It’s been years,
I keep telling Shizuo he should bring you over more often.”
“I brought him now,” Shizuo protests. “He’s really busy with work.”
“I’m always delighted to make time for Shizuo’s family,” Izaya says, his voice
as smooth and polished as his smile. When he glances back over his shoulder at
Shizuo his eyes are dark, his mouth curving up onto amusement that doesn’t make
it any farther than quirking at the corner of his lips. “You should have told
me your mother wanted to see me, Shizu-chan, of course I would have made time
to visit.”
Shizuo doesn’t even bother giving verbal protest to this absolutely blatant
lie. He just gives Izaya a flat look, staring back at the other until Izaya’s
mouth twists up sharp at the corner and his eyes sparkle with the bright edge
of true laughter; Izaya ducks his head, drawing his hand back from Shizuo’s
mother to lift and cover the sincerity of the smile at his mouth, and Shizuo
looks back to meet the smile on his mother’s face that does nothing at all to
cover up the level attention in the gaze she’s giving him, the unwavering focus
behind her eyes that makes her expression an uncanny match for Kasuka’s over
her shoulder. Izaya’s head is still ducked, his shoulders still tense on the
amusement he’s trying to fight back; and Shizuo takes a breath, and feels the
warmth of the air filling all the space of his lungs, and lets it out along
with the last of his hesitation.
“Mom,” he says, feeling the vibration of his voice against the inside of his
chest as he so rarely notices it, as if the importance of his words are giving
them weight and form far greater than what they usually have. His mother’s
smile smooths into neutral attention, her gaze comes into even sharper focus on
him, and Shizuo can feel honesty pressing into careful clarity against his
tongue. “I’d like you to meet Orihara Izaya.” He lifts his free hand to gesture
to Izaya still at his side, to their clasped hands illuminated by the glow of
the living room lamp, to everything that Izaya has always been to him, to
everything they have always been to each other. “As my boyfriend.”
Izaya makes a faint sound at Shizuo’s side, a tiny, weak whimper like he’s
suddenly lost his ability to hold air properly in his lungs; his fingers clench
hard around Shizuo’s hand, his fingernails digging in so hard Shizuo thinks
they might leave bruises. But Shizuo doesn’t turn to look at him, because his
mother’s eyes are crinkling at the corners, the whole of her expression going
tense on the emotion she’s holding back from spilling out over her lips.
“I see,” she says, and looks to Izaya again. Izaya’s gone perfectly still where
he stands; Shizuo can’t even hear the sound of the other’s breathing in spite
of how close they are. He wouldn’t be surprised if Izaya isn’t breathing at
all. Shizuo’s mother runs her gaze over Izaya, taking him in as if she’s never
seen him before; and then she sighs, and ducks her head, and Izaya’s exhale
whimpers into a startled spill of sound as Shizuo’s mother starts to smile.
“I’m happy to formally meet you,” she says, and then she lifts her head, and
her smile is breaking all across the familiar shape of her face to turn her
expression bright and glowing like the sun. “You’ve always made Shizuo very
happy, you know.” Shizuo can feel his cheeks flare into heat, some combination
of self-consciousness and happiness rising to burn hot across the whole of his
face; but at his side Izaya’s eyes are going wide with shock, his mouth is
parting on voiceless surprise, and whatever Shizuo may be feeling in himself,
it all falls to unimportance compared to the shock wiping Izaya’s expression
utterly blank.
“I’m happy you two finally decided to tell us,” Shizuo’s mother goes on,
glancing sideways to encompass Shizuo in the warmth of her smile as well. “I
thought for a time you wanted to keep things quiet, but Kasuka always said you
weren’t officially dating.”
“They weren’t,” Kasuka says, his voice falling in perfect sync with Shizuo’s
“We weren’t.” Izaya doesn’t say anything. Shizuo isn’t sure Izaya remembers how
to speak. His mother looks to him, her eyebrows raising very slightly, and
Shizuo feels his face go warmer as he tries to clear his throat back to
coherency. “Not before Christmas.”
Shizuo’s mother heaves a sigh and shakes her head. “Well. At least you got here
eventually.” She turns back to Izaya still staring blankly at her, her smiling
going wider until it crinkles in the corners of her eyes.
“Really,” she says. “I’m so happy for you both.” And then she’s reaching out to
wrap Izaya into the warm weight of a hug, and Izaya’s breath is rushing out of
him in a shocked exhale Shizuo can clearly hear. Izaya’s fingers flex in his,
his grip tensing like he’s trying to find a grounding point; and Shizuo
tightens his grip back to squeeze gentle comfort against Izaya’s hand. Izaya’s
glance slides sideways, his gaze catching Shizuo’s over Shizuo’s mother’s
shoulder; then he looks away, turning his head down to cast his features into
shadow again while Shizuo’s mother is still pressing maternal affection into
the hunched uncertainty of his shoulders.
It doesn’t make a difference, in any case. Shizuo still has Izaya’s hand in
his, can feel the adrenaline of stress easing from the other’s body telegraphed
in the flex of his fingers in Shizuo’s hold, and he had enough time to see the
strain at Izaya’s eyes melting into surprised warmth, had a heartbeat’s worth
of the give of Izaya’s mouth curving up on one of those rare, soft smiles.
Even after years, Shizuo is sure he’s never seen anything so beautiful.
***** Rumored *****
Shinra’s apartment is a scene of absolute chaos when Shizuo and Izaya arrive.
This isn’t the default case. Shizuo doesn’t spend anything like as much time at
Shinra and Celty’s apartment as he does at Izaya’s, but those few visits he’s
made for medical attention or to share a meal indicate that the space is
usually tidy and more or less reserved; even the hotpot party they came for a
few weeks ago stayed low-key except for Shinra’s persistent complaining about
Celty’s established rules regarding his effusive displays of affection. Shizuo
was anticipating something similarly calm this evening, even with the promise
of nearly a dozen people in attendance at the party; but the discussion from
inside the apartment is loud enough that it can be heard all the way at the
elevator doors, and it only gets louder as Shizuo and Izaya approach.
“Are you sure it was tonight?” Izaya asks as they draw to a stop in front of
the door. “Maybe you mixed up Kasuka’s movie screening with the indoor
bullfighting night.”
“I checked your calendar,” Shizuo informs him, glancing sideways to look at
Izaya as he lifts a hand to knock hard against the door. “If it’s the wrong day
it’s because you wrote it down wrong.”
“It can’t possibly be the wrong day,” Izaya says smoothly. “It must be Shinra’s
mistake.”
Shizuo’s mouth tugs on a grin. “Because you don’t make mistakes?”
“That’s right.” Izaya tips his head to look sideways up at Shizuo from under
the shadow of his hair; his lips are tight against each other, his whole
expression strained as he tries to hold back amusement from breaking over his
face. “You should know this by now, I’m a paragon of perfection.”
“Yeah,” Shizuo agrees calmly. “Of course. I know you’re perfect.” Izaya’s head
turns towards him, Izaya’s eyes go wide on surprise, and Shizuo grins down at
him as the other’s cheeks start to color over with self-consciousness. “I’ve
been trying to tell you that for years. I’m glad you finally started listening
to me.” Izaya blinks hard, visibly struggling for some kind of coherent
response as his face darkens into a true blush, and Shizuo laughs and reaches
out to catch his arm around the other’s shoulders. Izaya turns in against him,
pressing his face hard against Shizuo’s shoulder to hide the color suffusing
his face; when he speaks the words come out muffled against the fabric of the
other’s vest. “I thought I was supposed to be a brat.”
“You are,” Shizuo tells him, tightening his arm and ducking his head to press
his nose against Izaya’s hair and breathe in the spicy bite that clings to all
the other’s skin, to fill his lungs with the smell that has become a familiar
comfort instead of an impossible temptation over the last several weeks. “A
perfect brat.” Izaya huffs against his vest, capitulating to a laugh as he
takes a breath to reply, and then the door comes open, and Shinra is chirping
“Hello, hello!” at them both almost before he’s properly seen them. “Glad you
could make it! Oh, am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Izaya says at once, pushing away from Shizuo’s shoulder and turning back
to face Shinra himself. “Nothing. What on earth are you doing in there?”
“What?” Shinra looks back over his shoulder, as if he’s only just noticed the
continuing roar of sound coming from behind him; it’s two separate voices,
Shizuo can make out the distinction now, a man and a woman speaking at such
high speed and with such emotional volume that he can barely parse the
individual words as speech at all. “Oh! That’s Kadota’s group. He brought two
new friends to join us for the screening, they say they’re major fans of the
source material.”
Shizuo blinks. “There’s source material?”
“None worth reading,” Izaya tells him. “Are you going to invite us in, Shinra,
or shall we stand out here until your neighbors complain of the noise?”
“Of course, of course!” Shinra steps aside, sweeping an arm towards the chatter
and warmth inside the apartment. “Come in!” There’s a whole array of shoes in
the entryway, two pairs toppled one over the other and another three in
somewhat better array at the edge of the tile; Kasuka’s are there too,
carefully lined up in the farthest corner of the entryway where they’re least
likely to be knocked aside by a careless footstep. Shizuo toes his off
alongside his brother’s, working them free while Izaya has already slipped his
own off and is standing waiting for him; and then he steps into the apartment,
and follows Izaya to meet the crowd of people arrayed across the couch and both
chairs in the living room.
“Karisawa Erika,” Shinra says, gesturing towards the woman leaning in over the
arm of the one of the chairs to debate hotly with the young man perching at the
edge of the couch. “And Yumasaki Walker. They’re friends with Kadota. Karisawa,
Yumasaki, this is Heiwajima Shizuo and Orihara Izaya.”
“The fabled brother!” Yumasaki cheers, which answers the question of whether
Shinra has yet mentioned Shizuo’s relationship to Kasuka, and “The lovers,”
Karisawa says with audible delight under her voice. “We’ve heard all about
you.”
Shizuo can feel his face heat, can feel embarrassment burning to scarlet across
his cheeks. Izaya glances back at him, his mouth tense on the threat of
laughter again, but when he speaks his voice is perfectly calm and as casual as
if this is a regular subject of conversation with people he’s only just met.
“You’re quite well-informed. Who do we have to thank as the source of your
information?”
“No one,” Karisawa says, and Yumasaki jumps in as if they’re a single entity
sharing control of two bodies: “Everyone knows about the informant of Ikebukuro
and his bartender bodyguard. They say you’re the two people in town no one
should pick a fight with.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums, and Shizuo doesn’t have to look at him to hear the smile
tugging taut at the corners of his mouth. “Who would have expected the gossip
to be so accurate?”
“They say you’ve been dating since high school,” Karisawa says, leaning so far
forward out of her chair Shizuo thinks she’s in some danger of toppling forward
entirely. “Is that true too?”
“No comment,” Izaya says, his voice purring over enough satisfaction to imply
an answer to the question all on its own.
“Not true,” Kadota says from the end of the couch, where he’s considering the
DVD case of the movie providing the excuse for the gathering in the first
place. “They’ve only been officially together since Christmas.”
Karisawa blinks. “What?” She looks from Kadota back to Izaya, from Izaya to
Shizuo and back again. “I’m sure there were rumors about them being an item
before then.”
“Ah, well,” Izaya says, his voice a little brighter and sharper than it was
before. He’s not looking at Shizuo anymore, isn’t actually looking at anyone;
he’s sliding his phone out of his pocket instead, bracing the weight of it
against his fingers as he frowns sudden attention at the locked screen. “Rumors
can’t be trusted. You never know where those come from in the first place.”
“But I’m sure I--”
“Let it go,” Kadota sighs. “I swear, they weren’t together until a few weeks
ago.”
“Weren’t we going to put a movie on?” Izaya asks the screen of his phone. “Or
did the plans change without my knowledge?”
“Yes, the movie!” Shinra calls from where he’s returning from the kitchen with
a tray of drinks, Celty following in his wake with her everpresent yellow
helmet firmly in place and her arms full of an improbable number of snacks and
candy. Shinra sets the tray on the coffee table, and Yumasaki leaps to his feet
to lay claim to the majority of the bags of food, and Shizuo considers the few
spaces left available on the furniture and decides that the floor alongside the
couch is likely to be as comfortable as trying to fit into what gaps remain.
The other chair is still vacant, offering more comfort for Izaya if he chooses
to take it; but he doesn’t so much as look up from his phone before folding
elegantly to his knees alongside Shizuo and turning so he can lean back against
the other’s shoulder. Shinra ends up in the chair, gesturing invitingly to urge
Celty to join him as she comes back from dimming the lights, but she claims the
empty spot left on the couch to the sound of Shinra’s despairing groans. Shizuo
grins into the dim, and shifts against the couch, and as the credits of the
movie come up across the screen Izaya taps his phone to silent and slides it
back into his pocket before leaning in to press his shoulders against the
support of Shizuo’s chest. He’s looking at the screen, his attention fixed
deliberately on the glow of the bright lettering against the dark background;
he’s very close, his hair so near Shizuo’s mouth skims the strands when he
turns his head in towards the other.
Shizuo clears his throat, very softly, so it will be lost to the low drumroll
of the opening of the film for everyone except Izaya; Izaya doesn’t turn his
head, but Shizuo can feel his shoulders tense under his shirt, can feel the
tension straining up the whole of the other’s spine.
“Rumors, huh,” he murmurs, fitting the words so close against Izaya’s hair
they’re almost more a kiss than speech. “I wonder who could have started
those?”
“Who knows,” Izaya says, his voice so quiet Shizuo can barely pick out the
murmur of it from the hum of sound coming from the television speakers. “That
sort of thing can start from nothing at all, Shizu-chan.”
“Mm,” Shizuo hums. “Weird that they never made it back to you in your
information collecting.”
“Very,” Izaya says. “Are you planning to keep up this interrogation, or are you
going to watch your little brother’s first feature film?”
“I’m watching,” Shizuo says, but he delays for another moment longer, long
enough to duck his head so he can bump against Izaya’s. Izaya shifts
fractionally, his head turning so he can look sideways through his lashes at
Shizuo, and Shizuo presses the briefest of kisses just against the line of
Izaya’s jaw, an inch back from the damp of his lips. He can feel the sudden
tension of the other’s mouth pulling on a smile, can hear the tiny huff of an
exhale Izaya makes as Shizuo pulls away, and if anyone notices Shizuo fitting
his arm around Izaya’s waist or Izaya settling his hand atop Shizuo’s, no one
says anything about it.
Other than Kasuka’s performance as the title character, the movie’s not great;
the CGI is awkward and the fight scenes clumsily choreographed. But the
audience around them is happy to offer alternately enthused or amused
commentary, depending on the source, and Shizuo is more than content to stay
where he is, with the sound of his friends’ voices spilling over him and Izaya
warm against the curve of his arm.
There’s nothing he likes more than spending time with the people he loves.
***** Aloud *****
Shizuo likes cooking for Izaya. He likes cooking in general, has ever since
high school, when he spent evenings hovering over his mother making the regular
trio of lunchboxes until he was putting together as much of them as she was,
with her smiling approval to ease any uncertainty he had in his cooking
ability. By now he’s confident in his skill in producing any number of dishes
and even inventing recipes for things he’s never made before, and there’s a
satisfaction to cooking for Izaya especially, to knowing that the food he’s
creating will be taking the place of the dinners out or convenience store
snacks Izaya seems to rely on at all other times. And there’s something
domestic about cooking in Izaya’s home, about working his way through the
kitchen with as much comfortable familiarity as if it’s his mother’s, as if
he’s lived here all his life. It makes Shizuo smile over the counter, makes his
movements easy with simple pleasure, until even Izaya calling “Hurry up,” from
the other side of the room is more pleasant than otherwise. “Aren’t you almost
done yet?”
“Shut up,” Shizuo tells him, glancing up from the butter he’s melting into a
frying pan to see Izaya watching his computer screen with a tiny smile at the
corner of his mouth to belie any claim to frustration or anger. “Cooking takes
time.”
“I’m starving,” Izaya groans, leaning to weight his chin against the support of
his hand as he clicks through something on the screen before him. “I’m likely
to fade away where I sit if you don’t provide me with sustenance soon, Shizu-
chan.”
Shizuo snorts. “You are not.” The pan is steaming to heat, the butter hissing
and melting into bubbling liquid to coat the surface. He reaches out for the
bowl of eggs he has set out on the counter and lifts the handle of the pan to
hold it just off the heat of the burner. “You didn’t finish breakfast until an
hour and a half ago, you can’t be that ravenous yet.”
“I have a fast metabolism.” Izaya is purring the words from across the room,
the satisfaction on his tone audible enough to turn the mundane topic into
something sultry with suggestion. “Don’t you have anything to tide me over?”
Shizuo rolls his eyes. “It’s almost done,” he says, pouring the eggs over the
hot pan to hiss and sizzle their way to solidity. “I thought you said you had
work to do.”
“I do.” Shizuo glances up from the pan; Izaya’s looking at his screen still,
his mouth curving at the corner into a smile that Shizuo suspects has nothing
to do with what’s on the computer in front of him. “I’m very busy and
important, Shizuo, not all of us are so lucky to get by in life with just raw
strength like you do.”
Shizuo smiles. “You’re ridiculous,” he informs Izaya, his voice turning over to
the warmth of affection in his chest as he looks back to check the eggs. “I’m
not getting by.” The omelette is almost done; Shizuo shifts the pan against the
burner, his attention as much on the progress of lunch as it is on the
conversation. “I don’t even have a real job.”
“Is keeping me safe not enough work for you?” Izaya asks. “You should have told
me you were bored, I would have planned a kidnapping for later this week.”
Shizuo’s whole chest goes tight, his shoulders hunching on the sudden surge of
adrenaline that follows even the suggestion of danger in Izaya’s words. “No,”
he growls, sparing a frown for the other’s profile before he pulls the pan off
the stove to slide the omelette free. “No, this is perfectly fine. The less you
get hurt the happier I am.”
“Aww,” Izaya drawls. When Shizuo looks up from flipping the omelette over onto
itself Izaya’s turned away from his computer entirely to turn the full weight
of his attention onto the other. There’s a smile at the corner of his mouth,
soft warmth behind the bright of his eyes; when he sees Shizuo looking at him
he tips his head to the side and lets his smile curve the wider across his
lips. “That was almost sweet, Shizu-chan.”
“Brat,” Shizuo tells him, tasting the familiar nickname turn over on itself
until it’s more an endearment on his lips than the insult it originally stood
as. He sets the pan back down on a cool burner and picks up the plate instead
to bring it across the room to Izaya. “You just like to make me worry.”
“Mm,” Izaya hums, sounding no more chastised than he looks. He’s smiling all
over his face, his expression as languid and comfortable as the slouch he has
in his computer chair; he reaches out to take his plate from Shizuo with both
hands, only straightening minimally as he turns to set it alongside his
keyboard before going for a bite.
“You shouldn’t eat over the computer,” Shizuo tells him without waiting for the
obedience he suspects won’t come. He goes back for his own plate still in the
kitchen to bring it to eat at the couch instead; when he turns back around
Izaya is watching him, his eyes dark and mouth quirking on amusement as he
holds a bite of food clear of the plate. He eats it very deliberately, while
leaning as far over the keyboard as he can get, and Shizuo rolls his eyes and
huffs a laugh of surrender to this lost cause.
“This is good, Shizu-chan,” Izaya declares while Shizuo is setting his plate
down against the coffee table and settling himself into the soft comfort of the
couch cushions. When he looks up Izaya’s attention is fixed on the plate in
front of him, his focus devoted to working through the precise motions of
taking another bite of food. “If the personal bodyguard route doesn’t work out
for you you could always make a profession out of being a live-in cook.”
“Right,” Shizuo scoffs. “No one’s so anxious for ramen and omurice that they’d
have someone live with them just to do their cooking.”
“I would.”
Shizuo rolls his eyes as he pulls a bite free from his omelette, his reply
forming itself from the autopilot that comes with years of banter. “Yeah,
except you can just take advantage of me whenever I’m…”
Visiting, is what he’s going to say. But his voice goes silent as he opens his
mouth for the word, because the shape of it runs up hard against the echo of
his words: they’d have someone live with them, the offhand sound of them
suddenly ringing like a struck bell in his head. Shizuo had been joking, had
been teasing without thinking about the implication behind the words, but
Izaya’s tone wasn’t teasing, Izaya’s words were too quick to be--and he looks
up, and Izaya looks down, ducking his chin over the plate of food in front of
him with a motion so hurried it undoes any claim to casualness he might have
had.
“Wait,” Shizuo says, staring across the room at the angle of Izaya’s head, at
the color starting to spread across the other’s cheeks. Live with them. I
would. I’m visiting. “Izaya.” His heart is pounding hard in his chest, he can
feel every thud rush warm through his veins like another point of certainty for
the conclusion his mind has formed around the structure of Izaya’s words. I
would. His plate hits the table, his attention to his meal entirely abandoned
in favor of blinking shock at Izaya, at the shadowed flush across the other’s
cheeks, at the strain hunching across his shoulders like confirmation that
Shizuo’s assumption is the correct one. “Are you asking me--”
“Yes,” Izaya says, immediately, his voice cutting sharp over the hesitant
weight of Shizuo’s. “I am. Do you need me to spell it out for you?”
Shizuo doesn’t. He can hear the words as clearly as if Izaya has given them
voice, as if they’re hanging in the air between them: move in with me, as if
Shizuo needs to give his affirmative, as if this isn’t the culmination of
everything he has dreamed of since he was in middle school. It’s absurd, that
Izaya needs to hear his agreement spoken aloud, ridiculous that he can’t pick
certainty out of all the thousands of tells that Shizuo leaves around him with
every night that he stays over and every morning that he arrives before Izaya
has finished making his coffee. But it’s so Izaya, it’s so perfectly like him
to sidestep the question in the first place, to offer half-statements and
implications instead of a direct query, to be tensing in a panic waiting for
Shizuo’s reply as if there’s the faintest chance of refusal, as if Shizuo’s
entire being doesn’t long to be as close to Izaya as he can be for every moment
of his existence. Shizuo’s heart aches, his whole body straining to encompass
the warmth in his veins, the adoration in his chest, the weight of affection
too much to be borne in silence; and then Izaya lifts his head, his eyes dark
with hesitant hope, and Shizuo’s breath rushes out of him at once, and he says
what Izaya needs to hear.
“Izaya.” The name is warm in his throat, sweet on his tongue; Shizuo cradles
the edges of the consonants against his lips, presses the weight of the vowels
against the inside of his chest. His mind whispers, offering words so often
repeated they have become a silent mantra for Shizuo’s life; and Shizuo takes a
breath, and gives them voice at last. “I love you.”
Izaya’s eyes go wide, his mouth falls open. The flush across his cheeks drains
to the white of shock for a moment, and then comes back again with interest,
flaming to crimson so bright it spreads all the way across Izaya’s face and out
to his hairline. “That’s.” He blinks hard, his focus visibly shaken; his lips
press tight together, he swallows roughly. When he speaks again his voice is
trembling, the words shaking in his throat like he’s lost all sense of
stability for his world. “Not pertinent to the conversation, Shizu-chan.”
Shizuo’s lips twitch, pulling themselves into a smile formed entirely of all
the warmth pressing against the inside of his chest. “Really.”
“Yes.” Izaya’s forehead is creasing with effort, his mouth still tight as he
fights for some kind of composure. He’s blinking too fast, like his eyes won’t
quite come into focus or like he’s trying to hold back the weight of tears.
“I’m in the middle of a job negotiation with you, you’re--”
“Izaya,” Shizuo says again, and Izaya’s words stall to instant silence, his
lips parted around the shape of speech gone voiceless as he stares at Shizuo.
Shizuo has never seen him look so beautiful. He’s never loved him so much.
“Shut up.”
Izaya closes his mouth. He stares at Shizuo for another long moment, his eyes
still wide with the first impact of his shock; and then he ducks his head, and
braces a hand against the edge of the table, and pushes himself carefully to
his feet. He moves slowly, deliberately, like he’s not certain of his footing
or can’t quite trust the support of his legs as he collects his plate and comes
around the edge of the computer desk, and Shizuo stays where he is and watches
Izaya come to him.
It’s a careful process. Izaya works through every motion with deliberate
attention as if it’s demanding his entire focus: walking across the space to
the couch, setting the weight of his plate just alongside Shizuo’s, turning to
settle himself precisely on the cushion next to the other. He doesn’t look up,
doesn’t meet Shizuo’s gaze, but Shizuo is ready, and he’s reaching out as soon
as Izaya is sitting next to him, lifting his arm to wrap around the narrow
width of Izaya’s shoulders as he leans in to press the warmth of his smile
against the dark of the other’s hair.
“Yes, I’ll move in with you,” he says, feeling the words purring over affection
in his chest and going warm and soft against his lips in Izaya’s hair. “I spend
all my time here anyway.”
“There’s only one bedroom,” Izaya says, his voice strained and brittle with the
tremor he isn’t letting free. “I’ll make you sleep on the couch if you keep me
awake.”
Shizuo smiles. “You’re the one who never sleeps,” he points out, tasting the
shadowy tang of Izaya’s skin at his lips with each word like a foretaste of the
days to come, like a promise of uncounted nights with Izaya in his arms, an
infinity of dawns spent stirring to consciousness with Izaya next to him,
mornings and afternoons and evenings spilling one over the other with no need
for separation, with nothing to keep him from spending weeks, years, a lifetime
at Izaya’s side.
Izaya’s hand lifts, his fingers brushing against the tangle of blond hair
across Shizuo’s forehead; his touch is tentative, the contact uncertain as if
he doubts his right to offer it, but Shizuo tips his head in immediate
capitulation to the minimal force, groaning audible appreciation against
Izaya’s neck as he nuzzles in closer against the other’s hair. Izaya’s touch
drags across his scalp, his fingers winding into a hold against the waves of
Shizuo’s hair, and Shizuo can hear the breath the other takes, can feel the
thud of Izaya’s heart pounding fast on anticipation just against his lips. “I
love you too, Shizuo.”
It’s not a surprise, exactly. Izaya’s been giving expression to the sentiment
in a thousand different ways over a thousand days, spelling out the meaning in
a Morse code of offhand touches and unspoken implications and shadowed glances
that Shizuo long ago learned how to decrypt. But it’s different to hear it, to
have the sound of the words shaped by Izaya’s lips and thrumming in Izaya’s
voice, as if by speaking it aloud Izaya is printing the certainty of it right
into Shizuo’s veins, as if he’s leaving the weight of his fingerprints on the
pressure aching against the too-small space of Shizuo’s ribcage.
Shizuo has never been so happy to finally be at home.
***** Granted *****
Shizuo wakes up slowly. This isn’t always a luxury he gets -- often he’s pulled
to consciousness by the beeping of Izaya’s alarm on the far side of the bed, or
by the ping of a notification on the other’s phone, if Izaya didn’t silence it
before falling asleep the night before. Even on those days there’s no crisis in
the city and no meeting to travel to, Shizuo more often than not awakens to
fingernails trailing ticklish pressure against the back of his shoulders, or
teeth nipping against his ear, or sometimes just to Izaya pushing him over onto
his back so the other can replace the warmth of the blankets with the heat of
his body pressing flush to Shizuo’s. Shizuo doesn’t have any reason to complain
about the alarm, and less for the inevitable result of Izaya waking before he
does; but there’s a pleasure in stirring to consciousness over the course of
several minutes, to feeling the warm glow of morning sunlight against his
eyelids well before he has occasion to open them and blink his way to full
alertness. There’s the comfort of a blanket weighting over his legs, and the
heat of bare skin pressing close against his, and when Shizuo finally does
shift himself into awareness it’s to find the sheets tangled, and the sunlight
warm, and Izaya breathing slow with sleep in bed next to him.
Shizuo doesn’t move for a long span of minutes. There’s no hurry to get up,
nothing he needs to get done and nothing he’d prefer to do than linger in bed
appreciating the rare opportunity to see Izaya sleeping. Usually the other
comes to bed late and rises early; if Shizuo wants him to get a full night’s
sleep he has to pull Izaya down himself, pin him to the bed under the weight of
his arm and the persuasion of kisses until Izaya will capitulate to the
necessity of resting through the span of the night. Last night had been easier
than usual; Shizuo was halfway through his evening shower when Izaya had
slipped into the bathroom and pressed himself close against Shizuo’s damp skin,
and between starting things in the shower and finishing them in the bedroom
Izaya had been half-asleep by the time Shizuo had sighed himself into the
expectation of the rest to come. He remembers the weight of a hand settling at
his hip, the warmth of a breath sighing against his shoulder, and then Shizuo
had fallen into unconsciousness as fast as Izaya did, leaving the hours of
night to pass unobserved while they lingered in the comfort of each other’s
company.
Izaya didn’t move much over the course of the night. On the rare occasions
Shizuo is up late he’ll come into the bedroom to find Izaya frowning through
restless dreams at the edge of the bed, the sheets kicked to a hopeless tangle
and all the pillows but one shoved to the corner of the bed or entirely onto
the floor. But he sleeps deeply when Shizuo’s there, barely stirring and then
only when Shizuo turns over or shifts his arm, and he’s perfectly still now,
with no motion but the slow rise and fall of his chest to mark out the pattern
of his sleep-slow breathing. He’s ended up on his back, one hand draped over
his stomach and the other reaching out to fit under Shizuo’s shoulder; his head
is turned in, too, as if he was trying to press closer for a kiss even in the
grip of unconsciousness. Shizuo’s lying half on top of him, his arm thrown out
to fall heavy around the curve of the other’s waist; he can feel the shift of
Izaya’s breathing under his hold, if he thinks about it, can make out the faint
sound of the other’s inhales coming a few inches away from his mouth. Shizuo
blinks, his focus still slow with the lingering effects of sleep, and for a
moment he stays as he is and just looks at Izaya in front of him.
It’s strange to see Izaya asleep, to see the usual tension of his expression
entirely given over to the unconscious relaxation of rest. Shizuo is used to
strain at the corners of Izaya’s eyes, like a threat always ready to tighten
into the immediacy of danger during any one of the multitude of negotiations
they attend; sometimes the tension clings to his mouth instead, working on the
bite of a grin or the sharp edges of a laugh. Even when it’s just the two of
them there’s always something, some shocked softness behind Izaya’s stare or
the curve of startled affection at his lips. Shizuo can feel his blood warm,
can feel his breathing catch faster at the thought of the way Izaya sometimes
looks when Shizuo is leaning over him or drawing the weight of his touch over
warm skin, when the almost-pained stress of anticipation gives way all at once
to a wide-eyed gasp of pleasure to match the shuddering relief that runs
through the rest of Izaya’s body. But this is different than all of that; this
is just Izaya, his features left a blank canvas by the pull of sleep so deep
even the effect of dreams don’t make their way onto his expression. His lips
are parted on the soft rhythm of his breathing, his lashes are laid to feathery
darkness against the angle of his cheekbones; there’s no trace of the shadows
under them that were such a regularity in high school, no indication of the
bruises from past-tense violence at jaw or hairline that used to linger in
middle school. There’s just pale smoothness, a tracery of blue veins laid
underneath skin so pale it’s nearly translucent, and the shadow of Izaya’s
lashes, the dark weight of them tangling with a few stray strands of black
hair. He looks perfect, looks beautiful, and even Shizuo’s desire to let him go
on sleeping isn’t enough to keep him from capitulating to the temptation to
lift his hand from Izaya’s waist and draw his fingertips carefully through the
fall of the other’s hair lying close against his cheek. The strands catch
against his fingertips, draw back to let the sunlight skim across the other’s
face, and Izaya stirs, his forehead creasing and mouth tensing for a moment as
he shifts.
“Shizu-chan?” he mumbles, his voice so sleep-heavy Shizuo can better make sense
of the sound from the way Izaya’s lips form around it than from actually
hearing the syllables.
“Yeah.” Shizuo slides Izaya’s hair back behind his ear and lets his fingers
trail down against the curve of the other’s neck. “You can keep sleeping if you
want.”
“Mm.” Izaya turns his head without opening his eyes, tipping himself in towards
Shizuo’s touch like he’s getting more comfortable. “You woke me up.”
“I know.” Shizuo lets his fingers wander down Izaya’s neck to the line of his
shoulder, presses his thumb to the dip of the other’s collarbone. “Sorry.”
“You ought to be,” Izaya tells him. He leans closer under the weight of
Shizuo’s fingers, his whole body angling forward as if he’s melting into the
support of the other; his forehead presses to Shizuo’s shoulder, his breath
gusts warm across Shizuo’s chest. “I was having such a good dream too.”
“I see.” Shizuo’s hand slides down the line of Izaya’s back, his fingertips
trace out the pattern of the other’s spine just under his skin; Izaya arches
into the contact, his shoulders flexing to press closer to Shizuo’s touch as
the other’s hand moves lower. Shizuo can taste licorice whispering against his
tongue and glowing inside his chest when he inhales. “I really am sorry, then.”
“Yes,” Izaya says against the side of his neck. “How are you ever going to make
it up to me?”
Shizuo’s mouth tugs on a smile, his fingers slide down across the curve of
Izaya’s back. Izaya arches in against him, his hand coming up so his fingers
can catch at Shizuo’s hip; Shizuo can feel the friction of the other’s touch as
heat glowing bright under his skin.
“I don’t know,” he says, and lets his arm curve around Izaya entirely so he can
steady his hold against the line of the other’s back to brace them close
together. “Do you have any suggestions for me?”
“I do,” Izaya purrs against Shizuo’s shoulder. “Several, in fact.” He lifts his
head to look up at Shizuo against him; his eyes are dark, his lashes heavy.
When he smiles the edges of it catch bright against the color of his eyes,
bringing out detail from the shadows enough to steal all Shizuo’s breath at
once. “It was a very detailed dream, after all.”
“Was it,” Shizuo says. “Will you be able to remember all the details of it?”
“I think I can manage.” Izaya tells him. “You just have to do what I say and
I’m sure I’ll be satisfied.”
“Ah.” Shizuo leans in closer, hard enough to topple Izaya over onto his back
across the bed; Izaya goes willingly, keeping his hold at Shizuo’s hip to pull
the other in over him. The sunlight spilling through the drawn blinds glows in
the air, warming the sheets and bringing out flecks of scarlet from the shadows
of Izaya’s gaze on Shizuo’s features. Shizuo’s smile pulls at the corner of his
mouth, urging his lips into a curve he couldn’t fight back even if he cared to
try, and underneath him Izaya’s smiling too, the expression soft against his
lips as he lifts a hand into Shizuo’s hair and winds his fingers up into the
pale strands. Shizuo ducks his head to the force and lets his gaze wander
across the familiar beauty of Izaya’s features in the morning light. “Where do
we start?”
“That’s easy,” Izaya says, and his hand slides in against the back of Shizuo’s
neck, his fingers spreading wide across the other’s skin. “Kiss me, Shizuo.”
Shizuo looks at Izaya -- at the bright heat in his eyes, at the light
illuminating the pale of unbruised skin, at the happiness curving his mouth
into softness -- and he smiles, and leans in, and obeys.
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