Darling, Look at the Sparks
Fourth Shizaya fic I ever wrote. I don't really have anything to say beyond that.
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But you hold my attention without even trying;
A beautiful reflection from firework eyes.
“Let me go!” he begged. A bead of sweat trickled through his hairline as he kicked his skinny legs, attempting to flail his way to freedom. Mind you, this was completely useless because he was trapped.
Finally, I had the little maggot pinned on his back with my knees digging into biceps that were barely more than bones and skin beneath his shirt. I’m sure my considerable weight (compared to his, anyway) was making it difficult for him to breathe. Who could care? I’d been after him all morning - no. I had been after him every morning for the last week. I’m unsure how he did it, but in a place where there was almost nowhere to run, he evaded me with a sickening elegance. I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. Once or twice a week, at random, was manageable, but this was out of hand. I feared making a routine of it if I didn’t act fast. Besides, I was being careful.
He really thought I was so stupid that he could pull off the same stunt morning after morning, without me catching on. This only infuriated me, tempting me to use full-fledged brutality on his sneaky ass. If he thought my actions now were cruel, he really had no idea. I’d been to jail. I wasn’t about to go to prison for murder, but damn. If I could, I probably would have shot lasers through his puny skull.
Catching him is like catching a ghost. When you think you have him, he’ll just slip right through your fingers, as if he hadn’t even been there.
Now, he was where I wanted him. Like hell he was getting away this time.
“PLEASE!” he cried. The pink in his cheeks deepened, making his pleading scarlet eye a touch brighter.
“Not on your life!” I barked.
“But Shizu-chan is hurting me!”
My brow furrowed. I almost cared… almost. Not quite.
“It’s gonna hurt a hell of a lot worse if you keep resisting!”
“NO!” he childishly shouted at me. He was in such a panic that he wasn’t making sense. Had he forgotten how old he is?
Twenty-four. And we still put up with this crap.
“Hold still!”
“NO!” he shrieked.
“Izaya! Calm the fuck down! I’m trying to help you, here.”
“No! Shizu-chan is so mean!”
God. What was this? Grade school? Was I really holding this grown - small, but still grown - man to the ground while he cried and begged and threw a tantrum?
“I hate you!” he spat, but I knew it was his tantrum speaking.
“That’s fine,” I hissed back, “I hate you, too, you little tick.”
Surprised by my somewhat calm response, I caught him in a moment of temporary stun. Quickly, I plucked the red-framed glasses, which matched his eyes, from his face and peeled back the medical tape and gauze covering his right eye. He flinched from the light attacking his sensitive pupil as he quickly adjusted. I could tell that he wasn’t taking very good care of it on his own, definitely not using the eye drops given to him at the hospital on the day of his departure. He was lucky to have avoided an infection, but I still worried that he’d get one. The tiny cuts on his eyelid still bled as the bruising did its best to fade away.
Sure, he was healing well, but it didn’t warrant the abandonment of his antibiotics to prevent infection. I enjoyed looking into his rare ruby orbs. I didn’t want him to lose one because he chose to be irresponsible. Healing takes more than changing a patch twice a day. I worried.
I took a cotton ball and dampened it with some antibacterial shit (probably pure hydrogen peroxide - whatever) which was purchased from a convenience store down the street. Carefully dabbing it on the disappearing cuts, I couldn’t help but smile when the little twerp cringed from the sting.
“It wouldn’t hurt so bad if you’d clean it yourself,” I grinned, setting the cotton ball aside and opening the bottle of drops.
He simply scowled at me until I took my index finger and my thumb to pry open his swollen lids. A small whimper escaped him as the first cold drop hit his eye ball, followed by two more. I then proceeded to replace the temporary patch and his glasses. When I let up on a bit of the weight being forced down on him, I shook my head with a hint of a sigh. “You’re such a little princess.”
Ignoring me, he focused his left eye on the ceiling above us. Bamboo to match the floorboards. I moved myself off of him entirely.
“How’s the stab wound?” I proceeded to ask, ignoring his attitude.
Apparently we weren’t on speaking terms at the moment, because instead of answering my question, the parasite lifted his shirt, revealing nothing but a line of bandaging and more faded bruises.
“Izaya-kun…” I exhaled, implying that his response was not telling me what I needed to know.
He knew. He always knew. That’s why it was always so easy for him to grate on my nerves. Feeling like he was manipulating me, I sat back and stared out the window, waiting for his next move. I could only stare at Mt. Fuji, framed by the branches of a blossoming Sakura tree (from my perspective) for so long.
I was thankful toward my younger brother, Kasuka, for lending me his house, while he was away in America, wooing the large country’s teens with the moves I taught him. It was good for me and Izaya to be far away from Ikebukuro for a while, at least while he recovered… and hid. As far as we could tell, nobody was curious as to where we had gone or why both of us had disappeared. I’m sure they figured that without Izaya around, I was enjoying some peace. Everyone in Tokyo was oblivious to the reality that was. I wondered what their reactions would be if they knew. Not pretty, I can tell you that much.
Izaya had been beaten up and stabbed. As usual, he was to blame. It was the path he chose for himself when he decided he wanted to be the scum of the earth - an information broker. Those guys never meet happy endings, but somehow, he always kept a smile on his pretty face, even when wounded. I think he always accepted his bad decisions pretty easily. He knew what he was getting himself into, so he could accept the consequences to follow. To me… it left me to smoke myself half to death while I worried the hospital would call me and tell me he was dead.
I’m his emergency contact… and I worry every day.
So to further our once in a lifetime chance of safety, we avoided our cell phones like the plague and stayed shelled up in my brother’s “vacation” home. Both of us could only hope that nobody cared enough to put two and two together. Then again, I don’t even know how they’d comprehend us being together, given our malevolent street circus performances.
Would they be surprised of our behind-the-scenes affection? Everyone knows I hate violence. So would it make sense that half the reason I hate it so much is because it pained me to see Izaya hurt? I realize the hypocrisy in my words. I had a bad knack for kicking his ass around like he was nothing more than a stuffed sack in my way.
Izaya had always been understanding. He knew I couldn’t control my anger. In fact, he’s the lunatic who gladly egged me on. That masochistic freak would do anything to make me hurt him. He consumed the pain like he was some sort of crack addict, even acting fidgety until he got his fix. I used to wonder if he had withdrawals when he showed up in Ikebukuro, only to find that I wasn’t there.
Eventually, I was able to forgive myself for the things he forced me to do. Even he had his own way of apologizing. Though it was unconventional, he would break into my apartment, stay the night with me, and leave before daybreak. For some reason, that made up for everything, but always left a void in my soul when he finally left.
What I absolutely could not forgive, though, was somebody other than myself causing him pain. That’s what happened this time. It wasn’t me. I’ve only come close to killing him on a few occasions - occasions when the monster trapped within me was in no mood to be awakened - but never that close. He actually flat lined. Ever since then, things haven’t been the same. I’ve been afraid.
Even though my gaze wasn’t fixated on anything in particular, I continued to stare out the window, enveloped in thought about us, thoughts that would forever go unspoken… feelings that I had no desire to feel. And now, despite my best efforts to take care of him until he returned to his springy, obnoxious, infuriating self, the little blood sucker was mad at me.
Giving up on a proper response, I tore my eyes away from the window and stood. The longer I sat there, melting into my own head, the angrier I would become. I had to step over Izaya to get to the kitchen, where I spent the next few minutes making tea.
When I returned, Izaya still hadn’t moved. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest, paired with a blink here and there, I could have easily mistaken him for dead. I held the cup of tea over his head, offering it to him. No response. I was becoming impatient, but realized that something had to have been wrong when I threatened to stomp my heel into his good eye. He didn’t even emit his usual snicker.
“Suit yourself,” I tried to shrug off my own aggravation, setting his mug on the coffee table.
Staring at him, I sipped from my steaming mug in silence. He had to have been screwing with me. It was the only thing that made sense. So how did I get him to knock it off?
For a while longer, I watched him before I decided that both of us in the same room could be the problem. Taking my tea with me, I prepared to head up the stairs to catch a nap before lunch.
“Why does Shizu-chan always get to top?” his voice suddenly broke the silence.
I stopped suddenly with one foot on the first step, nearly choking on my warm beverage.
“I mean…” he went on, “it’s always good, but why do I always have to be your little uke rag doll?”
I swallowed. Hard. I never expected him to ask me that. Not that I didn’t have the answer… I just didn’t expect him to ask. For as long as we had been at this, that’s how it had been. I always had this comfortable assumption that he wanted it that way… that he liked it. Did he have expectations about our relationship? What kind of expectations were they? You mean, he didn’t know?
I decided to be snarky instead of honest. “You’re too small.”
“Small?!” he was incredulous.
I shrugged. “Yeah.”
“What the hell do you mean by ‘too small?’” Izaya sat up and glowered.
I scoffed. I knew what he was thinking. That was half of it, but really, I’m not so shallow. That bit of him wasn’t really… well… that just wasn’t it, okay? “I’m not talking about your dick, I’m talking about you as a whole,” I raked my eyes over his unclean body, “You couldn’t handle it.”
“Couldn’t?! I couldn’t handle it?!” he huffed and puffed, but he was not blowing my house down.
I won’t lie. The expression on his face was impossibly… adorable. His frustration was just enough to make me want to throw him over my shoulder and take him upstairs with me.
I recognized this moment as my chance for revenge, revenge against each time he taunted me, abused me, or just straight out pissed me off. Once that was decided, the remaining question was the “how.” How could I extract revenge? I knew immediately that it wouldn’t take words. That was Izaya’s department. He was the manipulative one, which was definitely showing by the hurt inflection he placed in his voice.
Worm. He’d never make it as an actor.
Having nothing but bad ideas filling my head, I decided to keep what I did say simple. Even if I turned his thoughts around, he’d still do something devious for the sole purpose of annoying me. As much as I hate to admit it, he was more cunning than I ever preferred to acknowledge. Wanting to take full control like that… it just wasn’t happening. He had enough of the power in our relationship. Too much. By the look in his eye it was plain as day. The little parasite thought that if he had this, he would have it all. Every ounce of control would belong to him. I would be hanging on his every word.
It was a good plan, but it was flawed.
After so many years of this, I knew he had always wanted to be the one calling the shots. All of the shots. However, he was missing one thing. While our skills were equally matched in a fight, they were matched in very different ways. There were the skills we obtained from each other, and those that we were naturally equipped with.
Izaya was born with the disgusting ability to get under anybody’s skin, and the mind to back himself up. He set traps. Physically. Mentally. He had a way of drawing in his victims, setting them up to his benefit. I, on the other hand, kept things more simple. In a sticky situation, I could rely on shutting down my mind and letting my body do the work. Looking at me, I’m tall, but I’m not a big person. The amount of power stored within my body is easily hidden, and when it gets going I tend not to feel a thing, let alone slow down until the adrenaline in my bloodstream dissipates. I go numb. And because I can’t be manipulated in that state, Izaya’s only chance to control me is when we’re intimately tangled. He always hated it.
Nevertheless, even given all of these solid facts, it wasn’t my only reason.
“You’re physically too small,” I put it simply, “You couldn’t handle it.”
His expression shaped into a sharp leer. It was obvious by the way his face slightly twitched that he was trying to contain laughter from spilling out of him. “Is that a challenge?”
I raised a brow. Where was he getting that impression? “Not in the least,” I said.
He stood up from the floor without removing his eye from mine. “I think Shizu-chan is in denial. I think he wants Iza-kun to try.”
My eye twitched. “That’s not true.”
“What’s the real reason you won’t let me be seme during sex?”
Shit.
I tore my eyes away from his. It was a mistake. I was giving myself away. Some plan. I didn’t even get the opportunity to finish the damn thing. Scheming is something else that was all Izaya. I’m not good for it.
“Shizu-chan…?”
I felt him getting closer.
Lifting my gaze back to his evil eye, I glowered. He grinned, but the smile wasn’t quite reaching his ruby sphere. He was doubting me. Doubting me in a way that I would have no choice but to tell him the truth. For all of his darkest secrets - things I’ll never know - I’m not allowed to keep this one.
“It’s just you,” I kept my voice low, “It’s only Orihara Izaya.”
“Meaning…?”
“I like women. It isn’t guys. It’s not guys at all. It’s just… just you…”
Then, the smile reached that eye.
Tch. The little snake knew. He just wanted to hear me say it.
“If it’s only me, then why should it be a problem?”
I held myself back from hitting him. “How’s your wound?” I queried, failing tremendously at changing the subject.
He snickered mockingly. “Stupid Shizuo… It’s fine. I’m still standing, aren’t I? Now, answer the question.”
“You sure?”
Izaya wasn’t having it. “Shizu-chan.”
“What?”
“Why is it a problem?”
I could feel the heat rise to my ears, causing a chain reaction to the rest of my face. Before I knew it, the heat had infected the entirety of the room. He had been a step ahead of me this entire time, knowing (probably before the start of the morning) that we’d end up right there, on that staircase.
“It’s emasculating. I’d like to keep what’s left of my dignity.”
Upon these words, his eye narrowed, though the smile remained.
“Dignity?” He said as more of a statement than a question, and came closer.
We were mere inches apart at this point. The way Izaya scanned my body for the umpteenth time felt like claws tearing me to shreds from the inside. Unsure of how to react, I could only glare at him and hope that the same sharp feeling running through me would bounce back into him.
Shuddering, he cocked his head to one side, as if to get a look at me from a different angle. Yeah. He felt it. Unfortunately, he liked it. “Dignity,” he repeated. Raising his hand, he brushed his boney fingers across my cheek, stood on his toes, and whispered in my ear, “Any trace of self-respect you have left belongs to me.”
A warm, slick tongue traced the patch of skin just below my ear. There was an audible quiver in my breath. I lurched as the mug in my hand slipped, exploding when it made contact with the floorboards.
Without a word, I tried to move past Izaya to clean up the mess. Instead, my back slammed into the wall. “Ngh!”
“Leave it,” his voice flowed with the intensity of the moment. Stunned, I wondered where the hell that sudden wave of strength came from. “Now, what was that you were saying? Something about how I couldn’t handle it?”
“Piss off,” I growled.
“I think I can handle it just fine,” he ignored me, “You’re so funny, Shizu-chan. So funny, and so, so stupid.”
For somebody as stupid as I was, as Izaya continued to rag on me, he was the one making mistakes. Every word spoken only resulted in less control over me, like he didn’t remember what pissing me off would start. Like he was so caught up in this minor victory of his that he never thought it would backfire.
Having nothing to say, I allowed him the pleasure of keeping this going. I was going to let him get to me. I wanted him to get to me. I wanted to show him why he wasn’t allowed to be on top of this relationship all the time.
“You know, Shizzy, it’s kind of a shame that you’d give up so easily. Has the fresh air gotten to your head. Maybe you’ve been away from the streets too long.”
Damn, he talked too much. I clenched my fist. Any moment now…
“What do you say we go upstairs and I take you until I annihilate what’s left of your empty pride.”
Perfect.
“Huh?” I watched his crimson eye widen as I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the staircase with a thud and a crack.
I loosened my grip, just enough to let him breathe, as my free hand tore at the button on his jeans. Not that it mattered because they were loose enough that I could have just slid them off, button or not. He barely struggled. He barely moved. Izaya was completely unable to escape the trap he lead himself into, and saw no point in trying.
Raking my eyes over Izaya’s silent face, my fingertips played with the hem of his shirt, slowly moving from the soft charcoal fabric to even softer skin. The light trembling beneath my fingertips was an exhilarating match to the freckles in his eyes. I found myself inebriated by his very existence.
Running my hand over his body, I felt like my life had become two parallels of calm and wild forced together by a car crash. I know how it sounds. It doesn’t make sense… but all the same…
“Shizu…” the louse inhaled, batting perfectly thick ebony lashes.
I growled in response. Izaya opened his mouth to speak again. Not a good time. I intercepted instead. Tightening my grip on his throat, I pulled his mouth to mine, pressing our lips hard together as if it would be the last time in our lives. A miniscule moan traveled from his mouth to mine, just powerful enough to make me crave more. I wanted to devour him. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to dig into him so deep that he’d spend the next several days trembling in agony every time he attempted to stand. I wanted to make every square inch of him mine. In other words, I wanted to force him to eat his own damn words when he screamed my name.
As the kiss deepened, his quivering breath began to level. Izaya’s eyelid fell closed like a curtain over that sparkling ruby sphere. A small electric shock struck my body as his boney fingers coiled around each of my wrists. He tugged my hand away from his throat before his hands traveled up my arms; to my shoulders. Carefully, we began to peel each other from our clothing, as if unwrapping a fragile gift. Taking his shirt back into my hands, I gently tugged it from his body, loving the way his thin arms retracted only long enough to wiggle out of the sleeves before returning to the removal of my sweater.
Almost skin to skin, his arms wrapped around my neck, pulling me in a bit closer. As I began to kiss away the red markings left by my hand on his throat, I rediscovered the bandages wrapped comfortably around his torso. Barely retracting from his arms, I sat up a bit on my knees to study the picture in front of me. I wondered… and so did he…
Izaya’s hands met the long scar slicing through my own flesh. The very same he branded me with in high school on the day we met. By the look on his face, he was just as curious to know if we were now equally matched. Cautiously, I located the pins holding the soft white strips to his body, and began peeling them back, enveloped by my own individual curiosity. Once unraveled, my eyes refused to be removed from the scarring wound, held together by tight stitches below his ribcage.
“I suppose this is deserved,” he whispered. Hot breath traveling over my bare skin sent a collection of goose bumps to wash across my skin.
“No. Not quite.” I replied, less than a second before I introduced my lips to his new markings.
Izaya was still dangerously damaged; something I took into careful consideration as I ravaged his body with my hands. Fear held me back. Was it okay to go any further? I questioned myself and our actions. What if I took things too far? I wasn’t used to being gentle. I wasn’t used to watching where I touched. Shit. Half the time I left him to catch his breath with a bloody lip, while the other half he was out the window before I could so much as glance in his direction.
“Don’t worry about it,” Izaya read my thoughts. “Just use me the way you want to.”
That was the only green light I needed. I’d won. No matter what his intentions with me were, what did it matter now? I’d taken back my control. All the while, I was giving in to him; hanging by his every word just like every other time we found ourselves in this sticky, sick situation.
Izaya smiled, bringing my hand up to his mouth where he ran his tongue over my fingers. He chuckled under his breath with the revelation that he had actually won this again. I used my wetted fingers to prepare him for me as quickly as possible.
Grabbing him by the waist, I pulled him into me. Without another moment on pause, I pushed myself into him, completely in awe of the way his back arched in painful ecstasy. Knowing that it was for me was all I needed. His skinny legs hooked around my torso as I hungrily pumped in and out of him. Yet I couldn’t prevent myself from being careful with him. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the reason wasn’t just because I was afraid, but that his reaction to my newfound method was unlike any other.
The agony was still forced into him all the same. If my dignity belonged to him, he belonged to me. I wanted him to know that, despite lacking a talent for words.
As light moans posed as traffic signs for our upcoming obliteration, I made an attempt to calm his pain-filled trembling by leaving a trail of light pecks from his forehead; down the rest of his newly flawed skin. “Aaaahh… Mmm… Shizu-chan,” his hot breath hit me again as I buried myself as deep as I could go. “Don’t.”
Hesitation. He smiled, placing a kiss on one of my confused eyes as I shot him a questioning glance. “Don’t stop,” he gasped for air, tears beading in the corners of his eyes. “Please. Don’t.”
Reassurance of his wanton need for our sinful union washed over me in a tsunami wave. I pushed into him harder… deeper… faster… stronger. He was alive in the pain, smiling despite it all; begging the God he didn’t believe in to keep me going until neither of us could hold on any longer. This desperate need of his only made me that much harder for him.
“Ngghhh,” he gasped, feeling for himself the way my body loved this connection with his.
His heavy breathing is all I’ve ever needed to get it - and keep it - up for him, but his moans… they were like an extra hit. An added bonus to the high, if you will.
I’m not as invincible as they say I am… the people in Ikebukuro. Everyone has a weakness. This was mine. I put a few more thrusts into my indecent plaything, and I knew. We were ready to die together if we had to… if we wanted to.
And with a final, deep push into his perfect body, I let go of the last of my senses as Izaya could do nothing but drown me in the sound of my own name.
Gently pulling out of him, I curled my arm around his waist, rolling next to him while he caught his breath.
“Ha… Hahahaha… haha,” he laughed, placing his hand over his heart.
“What’s so fucking funny?” I growled, leaning in to kiss his jaw line.
“Like I’d ever actually want to top you,” he chuckled.
“Huh?!” slightly pulling back, I eyed him suspiciously. “You gonna elaborate on that?”
“No need. I just got exactly what I wanted. That’s all.”
Suddenly sitting up, I gawked. “Seriously?!”
He nodded. “Mhm.”
“What?” he cocked an eyebrow. “You won’t fuck me, because, ‘Woe is me! My hole is injured!’ And I‘m supposed to sit back and deal with that until this bitch goes away?!” He pointed to the patchwork that was his ivory flesh. “Seriously, Shizu-chan, I‘m not here with you so that I can date my hand.”
“Y-your hand?! M-my hole?! What the fuck?!”
Rolling onto his side, Izaya buried his face in his hands, continuing to laugh childishly. It was pissing me off the way I couldn’t get a clear answer out of him. After all, he just called himself… my hole.
“You’re not my fucking hole,” I leered.
“What am I then?”
“Y-you’re my…”
His gaze narrowed. “Your what?”
“M-my-”
“Oh, shut up,” he cut me off. Pushing himself off the floor, he pressed his mouth into mine. “I’m yours, idiot, and you fucking know it.”
Turns out Orihara Izaya is a better actor than I thought.