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... )
“Izaya -”
“I can’t,” he repeats.
“Oh - yes, well,” he hears, and it takes him an embarrassingly long moment to realize that her change in tone isn’t intended for him. “If you’re willing to wait, I suppose that’s fine…”
Izaya doubts it until he manages to detect the faint tap of the phone being set down on the floor in front of his door. He swallows thickly and waits for an explanation.
“It’s still connected, dear,” his mother calls. “I don’t know how long your friend plans on waiting, but you can take your time if you need to.”
He takes a deep breath to steady himself; it doesn’t help the nervous fluttering in his stomach. “Sure.”
The moment his mother’s footsteps disappear down the stairs, he lowers himself to the floor and gradually works his way onto two feet. The door feels incredibly far away, but a few teetering inches in its direction close the distance quickly. He can hardly breathe, and it’s not exertion - not exactly, anyway.
“Hey,” he whispers to the crack between his door and the hallway beyond it. He should feel like an idiot, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least hear something like a response in return.
There’s nothing.
He presses his lips together and slowly, slowly pulls the door open.
Picks up the phone and holds it gingerly to his ear.
“Hey,” he repeats, as breathless as if he’s been out running.
“Izaya-kun.”
He sounds so calm - no, matter-of-fact. Business-like, even.
“Need something?” Izaya all but chokes, voice strangling in his throat as he retreats back into the suffocating safety of his room.
“Shizuo-kun told me what happened,” Shinra sighs. “Do you plan on sulking forever, or should I come over?”
Izaya swallows back a nervous whimper, licks his cracked-and-bleeding lips. “You don’t - you don’t know what happened - right?”
“…Should I?”
“N-no,” Izaya gasps. “It’s nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing. You’ve been gone a lot longer than usual, you know. ”
Izaya laughs, but the sound’s mostly just hysterical. “Someone noticed, then? How reassuring. I’m flattered, even.”
“Izaya-kun,” Shinra hisses back, sounding alarmed. “Tell me what happened.”
“I can’t.”
“You keep saying that -”
“I can’t,” he sighs. “I can’t - just - can’t, Shinra, sorry. It’s - not that easy. And I’m blowing it way out of proportion, anyway,” he tries, shifting tactics to brush it all off and call it done. “It’s not important.”
“Come to school, then.”
Nausea. “I can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“What do you care?” Izaya spits, confidence - anger - colliding restlessly with hopelessness. “Am I suddenly that interesting to you and Shizu-chan? After enduring that kind of humiliation - what’s so hard to understand - ah.” He realizes it too late.
“Humiliation?”
“No,” Izaya bites. “Never mind.”
“…I might be able to help, you know. Tonight, even.”
There’s that familiar twisting sensation again; it’s like being split clean in two, a child offered a treat and tempted by the urge to reject it because the reward inevitably means compromise. “You have school tomorrow.”
“So do you. And it’s still only six,” Shinra responds coolly.
“I’m not hurt.”
Shinra waits quietly for a moment. Then - “If you need me to run a few blood tests to check for - you know -”
Izaya does know; he squeezes the phone tight in his hand and then throws it with all the force he can muster - not much - at the nearest wall.
~~*~~
He wouldn’t put it past Shinra to come by regardless, though, so he takes the opportunity to shower - with his eyes squeezed shut, fingers grazing bare skin as sparingly as possible. The water doesn’t make him feel any cleaner - he doubts that it will for a long time yet - but his appearance is all that matters for now, anyway.
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His hair’s gotten a bit long, but it’ll have to work for as long as it’ll take him to get over the idea of having it cut. He’s pale enough to look genuinely sick, but that’s probably a good thing - an excuse, like the dark spots under his eyes and the tired fading of the black and bright red of his hair and eyes.
He’s just been sick - that’s all.
He goes to bed late, finds a spare uniform from middle school tucked away in a corner of his room and hangs it up for morning. The sight of the thing sends shivers rolling up and down his spine, but it’s a physical symbol of normalcy to everyone else; he has to wear it.
Maybe but not really because of that, he barely sleeps. He keeps remembering, and remembering means at least one attack of needless anxiety, his heart waling away at the rest of his organs and a quick trip to the bathroom to empty his stomach of the next to nothing he’s been putting into it.
~~*~~
He’s called down to the faculty room by their homeroom teacher even before the start of class.
“We’re concerned about the choices you’re making, Orihara-kun.” Izaya steels himself so that he won’t flinch when he hears that name coming from an adult - the tone, the same old voice all over again - and he manages it, somehow, smirks briefly before turning it into a polite smile and listening patiently. “As things stand now, you should still have enough attendance to move on to your next year, but I certainly hope I don’t need to discourage you from missing any more days.”
“Of course,” he responds. And then he narrows his eyes slightly, lets the smirk slide back into place and adds, “But if you were really concerned, sensei, shouldn’t you have at least reported my absence to my parents?” He’s not always listening when they try to talk to him, but he’s close to certain that they have yet to say anything about school or all the days he’s missing.
The teacher straightens and frowns imperiously at him. “As a matter of fact,” he counters, “the school called your home multiple times. Your parents said they’d see what they could do.” He leans close with that look that now reads - patronizingly - I only want to help you. “You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”
Izaya feels a little like laughing. This is clumsy of him, really; he doesn’t get chewed out by teachers - because, after all, he’s supposed to be relatively well-liked despite his usual attendance (the lack thereof) and attitude. He’s supposed to be good at avoiding prying eyes. He doesn’t know what it’s like to worry about disappointing others - because what do their feelings really matter, anyway?
His entire body jerks to face the door. He hopes he looks as irritated as he feels. He hopes it’s not obvious that this man frightens him in a way that only relatively young adults can, now - that he reminds him of the man he learned to call master.
“That’s a two-way road, sir.”
~~*~~
Shinra and Shizuo are there and talking when Izaya returns to the classroom. Shinra spots him first and immediately straightens in his seat, eyes wide. Shizuo takes a minute, then turns with a look of unhappy presentiment on his face; his reaction to Izaya’s cheerful wave confirms that he more or less expected to see the informant there.
“Miss me?” Izaya chirps, taking an unoccupied seat near the other two and pulling it just a bit closer.
“Izaya…”
He raises an eyebrow and grins at Shinra. “What? Don’t tell me you’re that happy to see me back. Or have you already started to forget what I look like?”
Shinra’s anxious frown deepens slightly. “Are you sure you’re okay, being here already?” He lowers his voice. “And last night?”
“You told me to come,” Izaya retorts, voice now just a bit flatter that it’d been before.
“That’s true,” Shinra acknowledges, exchanging an uncomfortable look with Shizuo. “But that was before you hung up on me for asking - you know.”
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“I don’t,” Izaya laughs. “The phone cut out, and I was too exhausted to bother calling you back. Sorry.”
Shizuo clears his throat, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “I bet,” he huffs.
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Shizu-chan. Someone with your IQ’s bound to lose.”
Shizuo splutters his way through a mixed bag of stunned syllables before he can manage to work out a complete sentence. “What - I saved your sorry ass, louse! How about a little gratitude?!”
Izaya forces himself to smirk, fingers drumming the smooth surface of some stranger’s desk, and then he leans close to Shizuo, a proximity that stabs all the way through to the informant’s raw insecurities, his heart hammering painfully in his chest - “How about we don’t mention that anymore, okay? I’m sure you wouldn’t like the repercussions otherwise.”
Shizuo stares wordlessly at him for a moment, then grinds his teeth together and turns away.
“Whatever. Get better on your own, then. Bastard flea.”
~~*~~
Only a small handful of people ask him where he’s been all this time, and those are mostly girls and disgruntled teachers. A few guys cast curious glances in his direction, but that’s probably more because of the rumor already going around - the one about Heiwajima Shizuo managing to stay calm in the same room as Orihara Izaya, inches away and talking.
He ignores that. It’s rather clumsy of him, but pretending that at least some of this never happened is probably the best way to move forward now; if he can erase it, he’ll be okay. If he can nullify the effect everything’s had on him - and on Shizuo, too - it’ll be as good as if it had never happened - not that he’ll forget, of course.
That, he definitely can’t do.
He doesn’t share many classes with Shinra, Shizuo, or Kadota, but the ones they do have in common come and go with the constant sensation of being watched closely, pored over, scrutinized. He can feel their eyes on him even when they’re not looking - he knows they’re not, knows they don’t care as much as that - but that’s why he acts the way he does, anyway.
He smiles and waves and exudes all the pumped-up confidence of the Izaya from before. He doesn’t let himself think about anything else, so, yes - the concentration is exhausting, the buzz of adrenaline enough to leave him shaking between classes - he runs to the bathroom, then, two times and counting - and has to empty his stomach each time before going back.
He doesn’t observe his peers. He doesn’t know how they’ve changed or what they’re doing with themselves now, and - he’d do anything to go back - he doesn’t care.
The first high point of his day is the ringing of the bell that releases them all to lunch. He’s fatigued mentally as well as physically and emotionally by then - and the day’s only half-over, when did school ever drag on for this long? - so he puts no thought into where he carries himself, just makes a beeline for the stairs leading up to the roof and tries not to look like he’s literally falling through the door when he reaches it.
His vision’s blurring again, so he gives up on scanning his surroundings and simply collapses to the ground - arms haphazardly working as a pillow, brow wet and breath coming quick. The way he’s sprawled tiredly on the concrete, he hopes he’ll look at least sort of normal to anyone who might happen to pass by.
“Hey.”
Izaya startles upright, blinking dazedly and trying to make sense of the voice above him. “Wha…?”
“You’d be better off resting in the nurse’s office, you know.”
“Shizuo - Shizu-chan,” Izaya mumbles. He pretends that there aren’t tears welling in his eyes as he adds, “I’m tired, so if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone this time, that’d be great. You’re blocking the sun.”
“You’re the one who should move,” Shizuo snaps. “Keep that up and you’ll get sick for real.”
“Mind your own business, Shizu-chan.”
“I am.”
“I’m not your business,” Izaya retorts. “Don’t be an idiot.”
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“You’re the idiot!” Shizuo snaps. “Do you even have a good reason to refuse help all the time?” - Izaya cringes - “You’re not fooling anyone, acting like that. You look like you’re about to fucking lose it.”
Izaya catches himself chewing on his lip again; he stops with a low sigh before returning his attention to Shizuo. “Bothering me like this - is it supposed to be your way of making up for the kind of person you are, Shizu-chan? I’m not interested in boosting your ego for you, so how about we call it quits already?”
Izaya has less than a second to flinch back again before Shizuo sinks his fist into the concrete by his leg. The informant can’t entirely stifle the stunned yelp that bubbles up in his chest as a few bits of loosed gravel zoom past his face. Shizuo’s hand looks like it’s bleeding, now, and a quiet wince as he pulls it close to his chest confirms that it’s probably broken, too.
“It’s not like that,” he snarls. “I just hate idiots who won’t take care of themselves.”
“Aren’t you also one of those idiots?” Izaya wonders, eyeing the blonde’s ruined hand.
Shizuo just shakes his head. “Can’t hit you, so,” he indicates the concrete. “That’s the best I can do. But I’m still trying, anyway.”
“Trying to ruin the school building?” Izaya mocks. “It’s already pretty old, after all. Shouldn’t be too hard for you.”
Shizuo stays quiet for a moment. His head is tilted slightly, his gaze fixed on his hand and the fine stream of red liquid lining the edge of his index finger, escaping every few moments to form a very small pool on the ground below. It had to have hurt pretty bad - hitting it hard enough to leave it dripping like that.
“I’m just trying to - y’know, do what I can with what I get. Overcome the hard stuff, I guess. It sounds dumb, but - hell, it’s better than what you’re doing.”
“That’s such a cliché, Shizu-chan…”
“And pretending not to know anything isn’t?”
“I don’t care if it is,” Izaya mumbles, eyes fluttering closed once more. He leans back and pillows his head on his arms again. “Won’t you be a good protozoan and get lost now?”
“Only if you don’t mind going with me,” Shizuo says. There’s no room for argument in his voice.
Izaya opens his eyes again and shivers involuntarily. “Don’t touch me,” he warns, voice suddenly thready.
Shizuo looks like he’s just been slapped in the face. “What? I already said I wasn’t gonna hurt you. Or” - he draws a shaky breath - “Shinra was right, after all, wasn’t he? You were…”
Izaya stills, hands and feet suddenly ice-cold, eyes wide and brimming with presciently stunned tears. “I was - was what, Shizu-chan?”
A tense moment of silence passes between them; it lingers for a while before Shizuo finally decides to say something.
“Never mind. Sorry. That was wrong of me, wasn’t it?”
“Shizu-chan,” Izaya breathes. His voice is shaking, rising and falling now, but he tightens his hands into fists and sits up again. “What did Shinra tell you?”
“Never mind, Izaya,” Shizuo repeats. “It’s not fair if you don’t bring it up first.”
“It’s not fair for you to approach me like this without at least putting all your cards on the table,” Izaya rasps. “Please.”
The pleading note in his voice must be pretty sharp, then, because Shizuo turns to look at him with eyes that pity, pity, pity.
(Izaya hates that.)
“Doesn’t matter if it’s wrong,” he mumbles, “but I guess if I were you… and it actually happened… I wouldn’t wanna be reminded of something like that, either.”
“Of - of rape, you mean,” Izaya all but chokes, laughing a little at the end - the hysterical one, lips quirking up, a bitter smile, he thought he’d rather die than say it but there it is and there’s Shizuo, unsurprised and sad.
Sad.
“I - actually - I’ll go, after all,” he offers. “Just this once.”
“Don’t,” Izaya whispers. “If it’s because you feel sorry for me, Shizu-chan, that’s the last thing I want.”
Shizuo looks surprised. “Then what?”
“Would you…”
Deep breath. In. Out.
“Would you hear me out?”
~~*~~
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He winds up putting words to the events, after all, but what he actually tells Shizuo is not the truth; it’s a watered-down summary. It doesn’t include what he thought, what he felt, whose faces he couldn’t forget in the midst of long hours and the stunning pointlessness of desperation. Fear. It doesn’t even begin to touch on how he feels now or the intensity with which he - just - wishes -
He wishes that someone had come to help him. He hates that he wishes that. He hates that he’s weak. That he was powerless to stop it. That he’s never felt truly lonely or paranoid until now, and that it’s now far too late to go looking for companionship in all the wrong places.
He hates that his resolution to isolate himself from all of them because it’s pointless and dangerous and terrifying can’t stand up to the gaping hole in his psyche.
He wonders when Shizu-chan will tire of this game of compassion. He wonders how long it’ll be until he can no longer rely on someone like that idiot to listen without openly reacting or judging or - or even speaking.
Because it was obvious - when Izaya could stand to look him in the eyes - that Shizuo was paying attention. There was a look in his eyes that lacked all of the blame and none of the horror - like a mirror, almost, except that he was trying hard to remain at least somewhat composed. For Izaya. And when it was over, he didn’t try to justify or dismiss it. He didn’t touch Izaya with any kind of force. He offered him a hand up, and when Izaya refused to take it - he withdrew it quietly.
With several classes still left in the day, Shizuo joined him in skipping school, brought him all the way back to his own home and even now is standing with him on the porch.
Saying nothing.
“Shizu-chan…”
“Yeah?”
He tries to force a laugh, but it doesn’t quite make it past the permanent lump in his throat. “I really, really hate this, you know?” He sniffles and swipes uselessly at his eyes - too late, because the tears are already streaking his cheeks, staining them a splotchy red on pasty white. “I want you to leave,” he chokes, leaning heavily into the wall by his front door, “but I - if I let you -”
“Hey,” Shizuo soothes, voice soft, word elongated. It’s like a sigh. “Hey, Izaya… I - I’m sorry, I should’ve kept my mouth shut, after all, right?”
“How should I know?” Izaya groans, sinking to the ground at Shizuo’s feet and feeling well and truly pathetic - couldn’t be more so, definitely, there’s just no way. “I don’t even feel like watching over humans anymore.” He doesn’t even feel like calling them his humans anymore.
“Guess I don’t mind that,” Shizuo jokes wryly as he stoops to kneel a few feet away from the informant. “I know it’s probably not gonna help if I say it, but you know… that’s not the only thing that makes you… ah, whatever you are. Like, your attitude and the way you think. And you’re still a pretty good actor, I guess.”
Even if I could see right through you.
Izaya stifles a sob and shakes his head. “None of that means anything, Shizu-chan.”
“Well, you’re alive.”
“That - doesn’t mean anything, either…”
“Don’t say that!”
He grabs Izaya’s hand before the informant can finish processing what’s just been said - and then his chocolate brown eyes are there to bore into Izaya’s red-rimmed ones. The sensation of bare skin in direct contact with Izaya’s terrifies him for a moment, but it’s just a moment. It ends and he moans low and looks hesitatingly at the muscles standing out in Shizuo’s arm. They’re not really tensed up; his hand doesn’t hurt.
He swallows thickly and steels himself and shifts slightly forward.
Shizuo draws a startled breath and starts to let go, but not before Izaya closes his eyes and - trying not to think too hard - hides his face in Shizuo’s chest. Fists his hands in his shirt. Doesn’t stop crying, but it all hurts a little less when Shizuo wraps his arms around him and hugs - so gently that Izaya would never have guessed at the strength there if he hadn’t known already.
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“I should go…” the blonde mumbles after a while.
Izaya stirs upright and away from the solid comfort of the embrace - it’s like a cage that protects instead of trapping, warm and close and new - and notices himself stiffening by degrees until his breath is back to coming just a bit ragged again. He’s forgotten to mark the passage of time, but he knows without that that it hasn’t been nearly long enough.
Not as long as his own house is looming big and dark and empty, full of rooms and corners and whispers that could as easily be threats as nothing at all. Not knowing how it’ll be without someone to take his mind off of the lingering pain and cold dread.
“You should,” he agrees.
“Um, also - thanks,” Shizuo mutters. “I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t doing this to put myself on a pedestal or whatever, but… it’s kinda new for me, being trusted like that. I mean, ‘cause of everything… you know. Even if it’s you, I appreciate it. I - I won’t let you down.”
“My, how old-fashioned of you,” Izaya teases with a half-hearted shrug. “I’m not handing a job down to you or anything formal like that.”
“I know,” Shizuo sighs. “But I’m the first one, right?”
Izaya doesn’t need any clarification to know what Shizuo means. “Mm. Don’t tell anyone - not even Shinra or Kasuka-kun. Okay?”
“Like I would,” Shizuo hisses. “And - and that’s what I mean, kinda. I swear I won’t betray that - um - I’ll also help. Even though it’s you,” he repeats.
“Ah,” Izaya all but croaks. “Right - why is it me, Shizu-chan? Why do anything to help from the get-go? Because I’m that pathetic?”
“You already asked me that, remember?”
Izaya shakes his head - a lie. He remembers, but he wants - needs - to hear it again.
“It’s not because you’re… pathetic. It just wouldn’t’ve felt right to leave you alone like that. Maybe you wouldn’t do the same thing if our positions were switched, but I don’t think I’m really that bad a guy.”
“Hmm? So Shizu-chan’s just that chivalrous, is that it?”
“That’s not funny,” Shizuo chuckles dryly. “And anyway, y’know - you’re allowed to be pathetic - or just whatever you wanna call it. Don’t push yourself to get over it faster, alright?”
“You sound a little like Shinra,” Izaya manages. “Is it because of him?”
“No - no way,” Shizuo dismisses, sounding vaguely disgusted. “‘S that even a good thing?”
“Seems like the right thing to say…”
“Oh,” Shizuo says lamely. “That’s. Good. Um, thanks…”
“Mm.”
“I’m going,” Shizuo decides again.
“Come again,” Izaya offers. “Soon.”
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