PART 11 OVERFLOW
DURARARA!! KINK MEME PT.11 OVERFLOW
This post is only for new and continuing fics from part 11! Please do not post new requests here.
ATTN all authors moving fics to this part:
Please put the original URL to your request somewhere in the first part of the fic, just so people a) know what it's for and b) to make things easier for russia_sushi-tachi. Thank you ( Read more... )
This post is only for new and continuing fics from part 11! Please do not post new requests here.
ATTN all authors moving fics to this part:
Please put the original URL to your request somewhere in the first part of the fic, just so people a) know what it's for and b) to make things easier for russia_sushi-tachi. Thank you ( Read more... )
A/N: Thanks to the kind anon who commented on the last chapter! I only just found it when I came to post my update, so I'm sorry for not saying anything earlier!
At what point - when and how and why - does Shizuo start to look forward to moments like that - Izaya relatively calm, broken pieces of him coming together all at once and honest words shared through fingers and lips and quiet caresses, tight embraces?
For Shizuo, it might be because hope has always been a thing that had to be clung to - uselessly, of course, always so far from approachable and self-control never more than a vague almost-goal of sorts. Hope’s always been his passive means of acknowledgment - that he’s not really a good person, doesn’t matter that he wants to be, and also that he might be able to change. Maybe. Somehow - and he doesn’t know, doesn’t have any idea, but it’s nice to think about, anyway. It makes all the bad stuff feel a little better even at the worst of times.
Shizuo can’t help thinking about making it all a little more than that for Izaya.
He’s always had the relative stability to get by even without having to hope for big things, after all, but Izaya’s different. He suddenly lacks that - the foundation that might allow him to rebuild what’s left of his life. He may be missing a lot. He may be suffering because of that and because of the pain and the fear but that’s all the more reason to teach him something like this - that it’ll get better.
It’ll definitely get better.
Shizuo looks forward to the calm moments and the closeness, then, because everything’s just another step. Izaya’s panic attacks definitely haven’t disappeared - and, yes, changing his bandages is still incredibly difficult most of the time - but even Shinra acknowledges that he’s improving in a real way.
Thing is, only Shizuo’s noticed that he’s been starting to feel a little better, too. So maybe he’s the only one that thinks of this as helping himself at the same time as he’s helping Izaya, but he’s sure he’s not crazy.
The feeling’s gotta be real.
~
I can’t.
Shizuo shakes his head and cups one of Izaya’s rail-thin shoulders in his hand. He’s shaking, but it’s not yet the panic-stricken shuddering Shizuo’s learned to look out for. He’s not quite sure even now what he should do every time it happens, though, so maybe Izaya’s used to being on the receiving end of awkward fumbling-about and hugs born of clumsy desperation - always good enough to at least hold the flea down so that he won’t hurt himself worse, and, after all, Shizuo doesn’t want to be the one at fault if anything like that does happen.
Well - he doesn’t want Izaya to get hurt, period, because hurt means guilt and the weird worry that’s got him thinking all kinds of crazy things. Coming back. Pitying Izaya and wanting this, trying as hard as he is.
“I’ll go with you,” Shizuo promises.
No point, anyway, Izaya mouths. Not if they’re useless.
He’s stopped breathing into his words lately - so now there’s no unnerving whisper-screech like wind in dead leaves, nothing to remind Shizuo of the scar that’s still lying hidden behind a curtain of white and the jagged lines of the stitches or staples or whatever the fuck it actually was that Shinra had to use to close it up - the injury from that time.
“I told you,” Shizuo argues. “It’ll feel better. And you won’t have to worry that people’re staring -”
The corners of Izaya’s lips turn up into a smirk, then, and his chest rises and falls like he’s laughing. He does that, sometimes - laugh, almost-smile - but it’s never because he’s purely amused. It’s usually something closer to self-pity, something dark and bitter and angry. Scared. Sad.
If he’s actually laughing at anyone, it’s only himself.
Reply
They’ll stare anyway, Shizu-chan. They know me.
He stops for a second, twists his head to one side and all his muscles drawn tight about the pain he’s probably starting to feel again in the absence of the old medication. His breath is coming fast and slow, his mouth open to drag in air and then to throw it all back out again.
The first day of that - the weaker pain relief, not as much and not as powerful - had left him a sobbing, hurting mess, all pleas for them to take it away and Shinra shaking his head, looking sympathetic and apologetic but never budging an inch. Shizuo had wanted to do something - get him off it more gradually, maybe, or let him recover more than this before taking the drugs away - but Shinra had managed to convince him not to interfere.
“This is why we can’t,” he’d murmured. “If we give him any more of the stronger dosage, his body will completely stop manufacturing its own natural painkillers. He could even fall into a medically-induced coma, Shizuo-kun - no, it’s because he’s too dependent on it, which - yes, I have. Any more gradually and it’d be too late by the time he made it to an appropriately moderate intake.”
That sounds bad, sure, but Shizuo’s not a doctor, himself, and he can’t help wanting to act on what he feels when he sees the flea in pain. So maybe he wouldn’t have listened to Shinra if he hadn’t reminded himself that he’s heard about things like this, before.
The old wisdom that to feel better, you have to start by feeling worse.
He’s been gritting his teeth through it all because of that, because Shinra’s word carries a lot more weight than Shizuo’s and because he’s afraid of the responsibility he’d be taking if he really did try anything, but - well, even so, he still takes that opportunity to apologize.
“I know it hurts…”
Izaya shakes his head, tries to take his hand back and Shizuo lets him. He doesn’t seem to be crying, but there’s something about the stress of trying to get better and the fear that comes with it that never fails to do this to the informant. It draws the physical pain out, forces him into a tight ball with his arms cradled against his chest and Shizuo leaning over him - worrying, as Shinra’s taught him to, that the movement will tear the tubes and wires from Izaya’s increasingly fragile skin.
Worrying that he’s not making half as much progress as Shizuo wants to believe he has.
And, of course, it’s not possible to talk directly to Izaya when he’s like that, so Shizuo just smiles forlornly and waits with his hands in his lap -
- for a while, anyway, but the fit’s an especially bad one, and Izaya doesn’t relax even after several minutes. It doesn’t seem right to just wait it out after it’s gone on for a while already, so Shizuo sighs and smoothes back the fabric covering that shoulder - the one he was holding before. He’s found after numerous trials and a pretty sizable helping of error that that’s one of just a few spots Shizuo can touch without risking an especially strong counter-reaction from Izaya - so he’s sure it’ll be fine, maybe not helpful but at least something more than nothing.
Izaya flinches away, though, and there’s a quick hitch in his breathing that reads fear.
Don’t touch me.
“Sorry,” Shizuo whispers under his breath.
And he pretends as he turns to go that Izaya can somehow still hear it.
Reply
Leave a comment