In the darkness, the room held onto a chill, filled with glints and traces of movement that looked like ice. The man had run in here with murder in his eyes, nothing less, but it had dimmed, and the red haze had lifted as he found he had nothing to throw, wield, or hit. Just seemingly infinite empty space before him. More of the bastard's tricks… he supposed, turning back towards the rectangle of light.

"Shizu-chan, don't tell me you've conceded defeat so easily?" Came the hated voice from everywhere, echoing coldly in the void. He whipped around like a moth on a suddenly illuminated window. The light behind him died. He was in the dark. He threw a punch, thinking he knew where the bastard had to be standing to close that door. He only hit air.

"I didn't know you wanted to die so eagerly." He tried the door. It was… not the same kind of door. A heavy mechanical door with no handholds, where there had been a flimsy wooden, hinged one "I'm glad we have the same aim in mind, Izayaa-kuun" he roared into the void. Seeing Izaya dimly, far away, smiling at him, he charged into the abyss, but Izaya had vanished. Shizuo stopped in his tracks. For a moment he felt fingers brush his neck, too quick for him to react, and then gone. He saw Izaya again, out of the corner of his eye running toward him, Shizuo turned with a round house punch aimed at the vision of the running man, but felt a draft pass his other side, before it too fell into oblivion with Izaya's face.

The laughter was echoing from everywhere, the strength and direction felt like it was enfolding Shizuo. "Nice place you have here, Izaya-kun, cold and dark, matches your soul." He shouted, but heard no echoes. His voice just got swallowed up by the darkness. And twisting in circles to try to catch Izaya, he felt movement above him, below his arms, circling round him, and once, infuriatingly between his legs. Sometimes he felt hands or feet, or breath touch him just briefly, never painfully, but in a way that terrified him. It was utterly unpredictable. Seeing Izaya didn't help. He was never where he should be. The flea. No, the monster, owned the darkness. Shizuo should have known.

"Why thank you. I wasn't expecting you to start making compliments this early in."

"Are you admitting that you can't beat me in a fair fight?" the movement stopped, and light flared for a moment in tiny, blinding dots all around him before being extinguished.

"This is fair. No one forced you to come in here. Picking terrain is part of tactics. Though I know Shizu-chan may not grasp the concept."

Another breeze passed Shizuo and with it wafted a smell, bitter smoke in thin tendrils. "You smell like a church" He snarled "Why"

"It's Ironic." Came the voice again. "And the word is Frankincense. A bit of free information, just for you, Shizu-chan. Consider yourself lucky"

Every time Shizuo's eyes seemed to adjust to the gloom, a sudden light emerged and was extinguished, along with his night vision followed by a new smell. "And there is some sage" "Some rose to balance the bitterness" until Shizuo was nearly choking on them.

Keeping your pride was one thing, but being played with was another. To hell with the bastard's ridiculous idea that leaving would be Shizuo's defeat. He was going to smash a hole in the damn wall and leave. Izaya wasn't worth this.

He tried to move, and couldn't. Something barely sensed had tightened on his wrists, ankles, every joint was suddenly surrounded in a persistent pressure. He pulled, and the tightness gave way, before reasserting itself. His feet weren't touching the ground. "WHAT IS THIS IZAAAAAYAAAAA KUUUUN" he roared in the same ineffectual way as he had been trying through the entire time.

"This is me winning." Came Izaya's voice, no longer directionless, coming closer, Shizuo could only stare ahead where it seemed half a dozen of him were walking. Arms closed around his shoulders. Hands dangling against Shizuo's chest in fists, one holding something cold and metallic "You had to know it would happen someday. One of us actually being able to touch the other."

"You sound like your sisters in their unhealthy obsession with my brother."

"Well at least we agree that that cannot happen. Can you imagine the holiday get togethers if we were brothers in law. It would be tragic." Izaya murmured in Shizuo's ear, his hands regaining life and light flaring again. A lighter held in front of Shizuo's face, especially by Izaya, was enough of a threat to bring down the red mist, but he couldn't move. He had nothing to gain purchase against, and the bindings wouldn't pull from the walls or break. Shizuo's eyes, leaving the flame noticed Izaya's other hand. The metallic thing… He'd thought it was a knife, but it was a little brass candle holder, with a taper in it, the wick being held to the flame a little too long so that a drop fell onto a patch of Shizuo's stomach revealed by the spread-eagled pose he was in. Fire, that improbably tiny flake of it, made the room bloom into incoherent brightness. The heat made him tense painfully, he was used to ripping skin, and breaking bones, but heat, lingering, weak, liquid, wax burns, were foreign and apparently could make him squirm like a moth caught in a web.

Izaya unwrapped himself from the man, carefully avoiding touching the candle to something in the air and putting it on a… a little table not two feet from him… had that been there the whole time? It was tall and wooden with a drawer. With Shizuo off his shoulders, and his eyes adjusting, he saw the faceted walls of the room, Mirrors, every one. How could he have been so stupid. He saw gleams coming off of himself, in the mirrors, like tiny rays of light were coming off his body. Looking up, where he expected to see industrial piping, was a great canopy of white fabric. "Izaya-kun… what the hell are you planning? No, how long have you been planning it."

"Saying that would ruin the effect"

"Humour me."

"Lets just leave it at 'you seemed like a challenge'"

"Seems a pretty elaborate setup for you to just murder me."

Izaya laughed heartily, and it echoed off the walls again. "What do you take me for? I'm not going to kill you. People would know it was me if I was anywhere near you when you died." He seemed to dance, or slither around the rays of light that held Shizuo until he was staring into his eyes. Close, very close, If Shizuo could move then Izaya would have been sent flying, but Izaya wrapped his arms around the bound man's shoulders, brought his legs up one by one to rest on the thick clear belts that immobilized the hips. So that he was kneeling in the hollows of Shizuo's body, his back an S as he looked down, brushing aside blond hair to get a better look at defiant eyes "There's something I did want to try out though. Just out of curiosity, you understand, Shizu-chan."

Their lips met, gently at first, reactions apparently needed to be carefully studied. Izaya started biting at the man's lower lip and feeling around them with his tongue. He gave a little chuckle of pleasure and Shizuo realized he'd been kissing back.

Izaya leaned back, raised fingers to his own lips and tentatively touched them. "that's going to bruise… Congratulations, on exceeding my expectations. I didn't think you'd manage to leave a mark on me."

"You need more realistic expectations, if you think I give a damn if I hurt you"

"I know. I'm the only one you don't agonize over hurting." He said, pulling at a thread in the web that pulled at Shizuo's head, exposing his neck to those bruised lips. To teeth that decided to make this moment difficult for Shizuo to deny later. Marks being left to blossom with time. Pulling embarrassing little, incoherent sounds out of him. "and yet you've never been able to do anything to me that I didn't want you to do."

"I'm not taking respon-n-n-sibility for you being a pervert, Izaya-kun"

The field of goosebumps that was Shizuo's chest was slowly revealed under Izaya's guiding fingers peeling away the layers of clothing and pulling back at the elastic that kept it from moving, pushing the cloth back and letting loose the elastic "Call me a pervert all you like, I am still the one who got you so thoroughly obsessed." He ghosted his fingers over Shizuo's muscles, pinching the nipples as he reached them and revelling in the failed attempts to keep silent from the man under his fingers. "I wonder if it's contagious?"

"Wanting to bash your face in is not the same as – AH – being obsessed with you, you damn spider."

"This was fun. Unfortunately it just shifted my curiosity" Izaya said in a half joking tone of voice "Maybe someday I'll indulge this fantasy you seem to have. You know, the one where you get me at your mercy, reduce me to a shrieking, begging mass as your body relentlessly hits mine." He nearly sang into the man's ear "Of course your hands and feet would have to be tied. I wouldn't want you getting confused and doing something you'd regret."

"Apart from what you just suggested, you mean"

Izaya inhaled dramatically "Cut me, do I not bleed?" he sighed, smiling the whole time. He shifted his weight a little bit, feeling out the man's body with his thighs.

"I don't know, why don't we try that out?"

"Don't pretend you aren't just a bit interested in earning my indulgences. I can feel you trembling."

"It's shuddering in disgust that you, of all people are touching me."

"The one person you can't destroy and who wants to touch you, you mean."

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Who do you think will take my place? Wanting all of you. I don't mean your looks, or your strength, or your passion. I mean all of it." He murmured into Shizuo's neck, and moving downward along his exposed chest. "Who wants that and doesn't add to your perpetual anxieties?"

There was silence.

"Because the way I see it, There's Simon, who would simply counter your strength, not celebrate it. There's Celty, who is so unreasonably caught in a pathetic kind of 'love'. And there's Saika, who you rejected. Who's left? Who'll have you? Apart from me?"

Silence.

"I see." Izaya said getting out of the tangle of rubber and flesh with a grace that suggested he'd practiced. Grabbing the tough bands above their heads and jumping down, causing strange reverb throughout Shizuo's body. He took the candle off the table and blew it out, leaving Shizuo trussed up in the dark.

The door opened, the indigo light of evening streamed in.

The restraints fell away. Shizuo hit the floor on his hands and knees.

"I'll wait for your decision." Came Izaya's voice, once again directionless.

Shizuo didn't even have the strength or anger to smash the stupid mirrors, he just walked out, towards the street which seemed different with the echoes of Izaya's words narrating.

"What is this monstrosity?" Kadota sighed, putting down the handwritten book, and looking at the ceiling, begging the gods for the ability to get the message through to her. "You do realize it's creepy to write this kind of thing about people who are alive. Especially people you know."

"I'm taking inspiration from life." Erika said "No one ever said you weren't allowed to do that."

"There's a difference. And the difference is that you don't use their names"

"Historical fiction"

"NO"

"If I ever publish it'll be totally different, and they'll have different names, and..."

"Just… never let either of them near this book…"

A/N:You know the drill, No ownership implied towards Drrr

Hope you enjoyed. This was more or less a reaction to the challenge mode that is figuring out logistics for Izaya to get close without Shizuo throwing a vending machine at him. Also I enjoy writing from Karisawa's point of view.