The Human Condition
Summary: Izaya is vulnerable for the first time in his life.
Author's Note: This story came to mind because I was curious as to how Izaya would act if he got drunk since it is implied that he stays the hell away from addictive and unhealthy stuff like drinking or smoking. Also, I wanted to delve into his psyche more. This fic is pretty much just Izaya apologising for shit he's done and contemplating his life, because I feel like he'd get more introspective if he's drunk idk. He's just so pathetic and lonely Jesus Christ thank god for Shizuo. This story is pretty much just Izaya apologising for everything (that he cares enough about that us, but hopefully not in a manner that is too ooc, more just contemplating his life and what he's been doing with it.
Heiwajima Shizuo was a man of little patience.
It was not as if he wanted to lose his temper over every little thing all the time. He just got…angry. And when he got angry, he lost control. Over his mind, his feelings and worst of all, his actions. Shizuo could not recall a time where; when someone annoyed him, he was able to keep his temper in check. Could not recall a time whereby a confrontation did not end up with the other party painting the streets red with their blood while dotting it with pebbles of white bones amidst a pile of ash and rubble. Could not recall a time where people would not run away screaming for help, that he was some monster. He could not recall a time where he did not end up directing all that anger and hate back to himself.
Well, except when it came to him.
He does remember that there are times where he would be able to throw, and lash, and punch with all the power he had without needing to hold back–without needing to hate himself afterwards.
Because he had someone else to hate for it. Someone else to blame for his rage.
So, when he found said source of anger passed out face down on his worn-out couch, staining the previous smell of cigarettes with the stench of strong, bitter, alcohol, he expected himself to snap. Maybe even to the point of throwing him out. It was four in the morning, it wouldn't be that bad.
Instead, he tiredly made his way and flipped him over. He wasn't even shocked that Izaya broke into his apartment. In fact, it was probably one of the least questionable thing that he has ever done in his life anyway. He wouldn't be surprised if Izaya knew how to break into the goddamn Pentagon.
As he flipped Izaya over, the bottle that he barely had a grip on fell to the floor with a soft thud. Empty. Shit.
Shizuo turned his attention back to Izaya, running his eyes over his small frame. Rarely did he get the opportunity to catch Izaya being so openly vulnerable–in any situation, really. When awake, Izaya was always guarded. Even when he wanted to appear approachable and nonchalant, there was always purpose behind his movements. His eyes were always narrowed, untrustworthy, his fingers tense. Ready to whip out the silver glint of his blades in the event where a situation proved to be going south. It was like he was built entirely out of sharp edges and steel gazes, with walls built so high and guarded with such cruel precision that most would end up cut with deep scars and defeated before they ever made it near first base. It would just be too much of a hassle to get to the other side.
It was simply too much work for too little in return.
So, Shizuo took this rare opportunity and drank in the sight. His breathing was a bit choppy and it absolutely reeked of some sort of strong alconol–whiskey, maybe. His iconic fur-trimmed jacket (brown today, then) hanging loosely from one shoulder, revealing underneath it to contain a simple, long-sleeved gray shirt. Shizuo remembers when they used to chase each other around the city; Day after day, Izaya's jacket would flutter and flaunt whenever he made the slightest movement. Like a dark shadow that tempted and tormented Shizuo, always just out of reach. He scoffed now, not at his inability to keep up, but at the fact that he always let himself get roped in. Now look at them, out of time and out of breath. He sighed. Izaya's cheeks held a light flush of colour over them, making Shizuo wonder how much he drank to have ended up in this state. There were dark crescents hanging prominently under his eyes. Shizuo wonders just how much sleep he managed to get these past few days before deciding to crash land in his run-down apartment building. His brows creased and his hands clenched into tight fists. Figures he wouldn't take care of himself.
Extending a hand to feel his forehead, he noticed that Izaya was sweating…a lot. And it did not help that his apartment could not afford air conditioning in the living room. It was quite bad, to the point where Izaya was even panting harshly at certain junctures.
Maybe this was a bit fucked up–he was probably growing crazy from years of exposure to him–but he would never admit it to anyone; that like this, he was tolerable, maybe even a bit…cute. Fuck what am I thinking. I need a light.
It was not like he hasn't seen Izaya hot and bothered before. Quite the opposite, actually, he has seen it a lot. And most of the time, it was by his hands, so he didn't know why he was acting like a highschool virgin all of a sudden.
He was not sure why, but it bothered him to see Izaya like this.
Orihara Izaya was like a blank puzzle piece that never saw an end. It was simple but complicated. Simply complicated. Every piece looked the same on the surface, but if you looked closer, you'd realise that there were subtle differences to his scattered pieces that never fit properly. You never knew where to start from, and if you got a clue about where the next piece went, there was still the next one. It was time consuming, challenging, draining, and by the end of it all, you were left with nothing but a vague and emptly slate left staring back at you. And Shizuo wonders, what was the point in it all.
He was not an idiot, despite what Izaya and many others would say about him. He used to like puzzles and games that were about deduction. Detective stories were his favourites. finding the culptit through clues and observation, relying on their understanding and not pure instinct. So he thinks he's observant enough and pieced together enough of this puzzle to know that Izaya rarely ever took addictive substances or just about anything that would make him lose control for even a second.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Again. He couldn't deal with this shit, on any day of the week really. "Goddamn fucking flea, you just have to make me clean after your stupid shit, huh?"
All he got back was the ringing silence. Even the boisterous city was dead quiet at this hour.
Shizuo got down slowly to brush aside Izaya's bangs that were matted, sticking to his forehead like a mass of leeches. Even when asleep he knew how to annoy the fuck out of Shizuo. He had a natural talent for it.
He took another once over at Izaya's passed out form. Appreciated his serene, if not slightly irritated and vulnerable expression, before (attempting to) gently direct his right hand under Izaya's knees and his left around his shoulders before lifting him up bridal style. For someone like Shizuo, who threw around vending machines like they were nothing more than pebbles–and that was on a good day–this was nothing.
In Shizuo's arms, Izaya felt small.
It would be so easy. He tried to tell himself. To squeeze a just a little bit more, to exert just a bit more force onto him, and he could break, just like that.
It would be too easy, he told himself.
He kicked away the bottle before making his way towards his bedroom. He'd deal with it tomorrow. It took around three minutes for him to fumble with the doorknob when someone was snug in his arms, Shizuo found. As a young kid, he used to have dreams about doing this before with some sweet girl that accepted him for all that he was. Who would greet him with warm kisses and meals after a long day of work. And he would sweep her off her feet and into his room where they could just, relax and cuddle. Shizuo felt his anger rise up again. The world must fucking despise his guts to have his fantasies play out in such an ironic fashion.
His eye twitched ever so slightly before he quickly dropped his attempt at gentleness and dumped Izaya ungracefully onto his bed. His body landed with a poof!, limbs sprawled out in every direction. Shizuo shuffled forward to switch on the bedside lamp. It glimmered with a pale, sickly yellow, but it was the best he could afford. God, it was too early for this. At least it didn't seem like Izaya looked through any of his stuff, he was probably too wasted for that.
Why was he doing this? Why didn't he just kick him out, or try harder to ignore him more. Maybe then he could have held in his rage. Maybe then, he could have had his peaceful world.
In the corner of his eyes, he saw Izaya stirring in his sleep, mumbling some sort of gibberish Shizuo could not give enough of a shit to pay attention to. He buried his face in his palms. He was so fucking tired.
After a while, Shizuo heard shuffling coming from behind, and then he felt a pair of arms slide around his waist and a face rubbing softly against his sides, pressed closely. So Izaya was a cuddly drunk, huh. He could probably make fun of him for it later.
At one point, he started drooling on his vest. "Oi, Izaya. Fucking stop that."
"Ahhh, Shizu-chan…heh welcome home.~" He could still fucking smirk at him in this state.
"Yeah." He grits out, fists grasping tightly onto his tattered bedsheets. "Imagine my surprise when I found out that I had to deal with a pest infestation."
Izaya laughed out loud at that one, sharp and grating against his thigh. Piercing through the thick lull of blackness. Yep, he definitely liked him asleep the most. "No, no, no, Shizu-chan are you a grade schooler? An 'infestation' has to include a large number of things. 'Invasion' is the word you're looking for. Jeez, even a toddler can point out the differences. In either case, you should have called pest control services instead of carrying your pest like a gorgeous princess to your bedroom hmm?"
Goddamn fucker knew. He was probably jolted awake when Shizuo tried to carry him up. If he knew he wouldn't have even bothered to be careful. "Well, your ego probably counts as an infestation." Ok, that did sound childish. "And not like it would solve anything. This particular flea is persistent as fuck and impossible to get rid of."
"Oh? Well you know, nothing is technically impossible, give it time and it is surely to get bored and leave." Izaya giggled at Shizuo's child-like response, not missing the irony in his retort.
For some reason, that bothered Shizuo. He felt his chest tighten and constrain painfully at the thought of Izaya leaving. Shizuo thinks he might have heard himself growl, deep and low, resounding loudly against the still quiet of the early morning. He was moving without thinking, and before he knew it, he had Izaya pinned by the neck with his back against his bed.
"H-ah! Shizu-chan were you jealous? I can't believe it, did you get hurt by the thought that I would leave you alone? Hahah–worry not, if you keep–acting this unpredictably It'll keep things–fun–don't you think!" as much as he tried to keep his cool, Izaya was battered and drunk, and certainly no match for Shizuo's raw strength.
"Do you ever shut up?" his patience was seriously wearing thin. Why did he keep reacting this way? Didn't he want this piece of shit out of his life? He tightened the stranglehold he had around that thin, pale, neck. It would be so easy.
At that moment, he saw something flash in Izaya's eyes, too quickly for him to pick up on.
"You know, Shizu-chan" his voice was small. Whimpering. Whether from the lack of oxygen or something else, Shizuo was not sure. But he was willing to bet on the latter. Izaya had never quivered in the face of overwhelming adversity before, especially if said source of affliction was Shizuo.
He kept going, words slightly slurred, "I have always avoided the subject of myself like the plague. 'Am I happy about who I am?' 'Should I be?' All trivial questions that I never paid much mind to, because all I really ever desired to know were about my humans. How they interact with each other, being thrust into different and more dire situations, not out of malicious intent, simply curiosity. Like an indifferent child, watching as he pulls of the wings of a butterfly. This alone, was enough to satisfy me." Even under pressure, he could still enrapture. Seems like his earlier stuttering was shock, more than anything. Asshole.
"Where are you going with this, flea?" His glare softened as he sighed for the third time that hour. Loosening his grip to rub his sore eyes, it was going to be a long night–morning –fuck it. But Izaya probably wanted, no. Needed this.
Izaya breathed just as easily as when he had his hands wrapped around his neck. He shut his eyes as he hummed softly, and surprised Shizuo further by crawling into his lap and sliding two bony hands around his neck. Almost like a cat, he thought, somewhat amused though thoroughly confused. The night was just filled with surprises, and he called Shizuo unpredictable.
He shifts Izaya's legs up higher to hook around his hips, drawing him closer so that they are perfectly aligned in every way. The way Izaya's eyelids flutter, for just a moment, means he can feel it, too. He might as well be comfortable if he was going to put up with this.
"I liked surrounding myself with all these distractions," he carried on, nuzzling his face into the corner of Shizuo's neck. "So that I didn't need to care about myself. I guess…you could say that I kept surrounding myself with broken people just to feel whole again. Hah. I know that my personality is obnoxious and horrible, but it never bothered me. I just didn't need to think about it, after all, when has God ever took a moment to reflect upon himself."
"But…then you came into my life and started to care for someone like me." Shizuo stiffened as Izaya's voice cracked at that last word. Was he…? "It makes my ugly side so much more difficult to ignore, that a monster like you can still show his humanity so clearly, not to mention towards someone who has ruined your life so many times."
"It really disgusts me." He was rambling at this point, he couldn't seem to be able to stop. But Shizuo didn't mind, he found himself wanting to know more.
"Like earlier. You really should have just left me be, instead of carrying me so gently and comfortingly, I wanted to puke." Izaya hissed, his nails dug into Shizuo's back hard enough for even him to feel. And maybe Izaya was right, but that didn't mean it was necessarily right, to Shizuo at least. Anyone else would have probably done differently, but Shizuo just wasn't the kind of person to leave someone in obvious pain alone, that was just too cruel. He wasn't above thinking about it though.
"Maybe I'm just stupid." Shizuo shrugged.
"Pfft, 'maybe' it says–well, self-awareness is important after all." Haughty tone and all.
"…when left to ponder about all these things more and more when I am alone though…it became all the more apparent to me, this side of myself. And…well, I never did think I was capable of change. But you have always defied my expectations, hm? Maybe you've changed me Shizu-chan." Izaya pinched Shizuo's cheeks playfully as he rambled on, brows furrowing in mock distaste for the man. This earned him a small grunt in return as Shizuo tried to shake his head away like a puppy who was being patronised. This got a small chuckle out of Izaya.
Shizuo was relieved that he was able to get a small rise out of Izaya. Managing to detach him from his solemn mood for just a while. In his current state, a depressed Izaya was troublesome to deal with, more so than regular Izaya. Shizuo was completely lost. All he could offer now was his kindness and to listen patiently. Two things he was not the best at when it came to the man in question. But he tried.
"Maybe I don't mind being changed, just a bit." The admittance was barely above a whisper. If not for the defeaning silence of his neighbourhood and the fact that it was early enough that the sun hadn't even begun to rise, Shizuo might not have been able to hear it. And god knows if he asked Izaya to repeat himself he would have denied it vehemently.
His eyes glistened with wonder and pain as small tears began to pool in their corners.
"Ah~ but don't you think humans are just the greatest Shizu-chan!" It amazed him how Izaya could still speak rather coherently after drinking so much. It amazed him even more how Izaya was able to shift moods so quickly, laugh away his problems just like that. He wanted to smack some sense into him.
"All you need to do is just take a goood look at history. So many wars, so many deaths and sacrifices made. And all of them had one goal in common; change. The reason for all conflict. Yes, humans desired to make a change, whether for their own, selfish reasons or the benefit of everyone that–for better or for worse–they decided to take matters into their own hands. Change gave them purpose. Of course, there were other things that fueled this ambition; family, friends, glory. But I think that the most interesting and telling was their desire to change their current situation–from revolutions to colonisations–so that they would be the ones in control, in charge of a new world.
"Even if it took them years, decades, centuries to get what they wanted, neither side would give up easily, even passing the torch down to the next generations. That's what I want to see more you know. Human perseverance, their motivations, their pain, their denials, the expressions on their faces when they realise that they have failed. These, Human conditions, I love, love, love so much!" Izaya jerkily flung his arms wide and open. His eyes were wide and fully focused, it bore creepily into Shizuo's own while he wore a twisted smile upon his face. Well, he always had a flair for the dramatic.
"Ah…bet you must think I'm sick huh?" he hunched forward until their foreheads bumped and their noses were touching. His expression didn't hold as much malice, he looked more open and inviting, contemplative. "Who am I kidding?" he teased. "You've been thinking that since the very beginning. And don't try to lie to me Shizu-chan! It's written all over your face!" As he said that, he jabbed a finger in Shizuo's face, his voice held a charming lilt that was riddled wirh false accusation as he pouted like a petulant child.
Shizuo rolled his eyes. "You know, despite what you would like people to believe, you're way above the age of twenty-one. It's pretty obvious, actually." He smirked, barely restraining the bubbling of joy in his tone. Sometimes, teasing Izaya could be fun. Especially when Izaya appeared to be genuinely affronted by that statement. He was weirdly self-conscious.
Though, even when drunk he was still far better at controlling his emotions than Shizuo himself. "Heh~ what's this? So the monster knows how to tease too? You know, you've become a lot easier to read as of late…hah, does that mean that Shizu-chan actually trusts me now~" Taunting. Though Shizuo knew that there was something else hidden under that urge to get a rise out of Shizuo, insecurity, fear, loneliness.
"Yeah no shit, I've already forgiven your lying ass. After all the fucked up shit you've done that I've accepted, what makes you think I don't trust you now? For fucks sake you're in my lap Izaya!" He's gotten angry again.
It was followed by chilling silence. Izaya's face holding some sort of unreadable expression as they glared each other down. The atmosphere between seemed to have grown thicker and was laced with tension, before once again, Izaya broke it.
"Such barbaric language…" he muttered out. Turning his nose up in displeasure.
"Oh! But speaking of foregiveness," he persisted on, as always. "I also think that it's great how long it takes for humans to forgive each other too! People are just far too prideful to admit defeat." A pause. "To think, having to let go of everything, their beliefs, ideology, dignity." A hiccup. "Something they've works so hard to achieve…wasted…" And the tears fell hard onto Shizuo's vest. Izaya was all-out sobbing, his voice muffled into Shizuo's shoulder while he ran his hands through those silky, black locks.
"Just expected to–hic–leave everything behind! 'It's all water under the bridge', they say, when the water is laced with so much venom that nothing can flourish in it anymore. Never clean to begin with." He hissed, he was in hysterics. Shizuo could not see his face, but he felt him shake and quake with tremors that could rival the worst of earthquakes. Shizuo squeezed back harder.
"So right now, while I've lost control of my emotions and have no more defences left, all I want to say is…I'm sorry, Shizuo."
"I'm sorry for all the shit I put you through, for no real reason whatsoever. I'm sorry for not realising you were human too, I'm sorry for not admitting that the real monster…is me. If I weren't such a coward, maybe things would have turned out different?"
He was so small in Shizuo's arms. Like a small cat trying to appear as a ferocious tiger, baring its claws, it was humiliating and it only ended with him hurt in the end.
He sobbed longer, minutes turned into hours with the both of them tiredly embracing each other. Holding on as though their lives depended on it. And in some ways, it did.
"ah…" Izaya croaked after a while. At this hour, the sun had begun to rise. "I bet I really surprised you there, did I not?"
Shizuo looked up to meet his eyes, he didn't know when, but at one point he had his face buried in Izaya's hair, as if he were trying to look deep into his psyche and understand this strange enigma known as Orihara Izaya.
Izaya's eyes were downcast, the cogs in his brain were spinning again, he looked disappointed, before leaning into Shizuo to hide his face more. "Most of all though…I'm sorry for myself."
"I'm selfish, all I'm really sorry for is for the fact that I turned out this way, that above all, I who fears rejection and loneliness have indirectly caused all my humans to reject me, and isolated myself from forming connections with anyone else. Haha, isn't that like some form of poetic justice?" He started laughing.
That was the strange thing about Izaya. No matter what kind of situation he was in, Shizuo thinks that he would always laugh through it, for no other reason than the fact that it was amusing and entertaining to him. Nothing was boring when it came to him, only tedious.
And somewhere along the line, as the gray light of the city broke through and flooded his room, overpowering that frail yellow and promising nothing but ambiguity, Shizuo found himself crying and laughing too.
And it is here, when he is trying to piece together a shattered man in the stillness of the early morning, with arms that have been broken and damaged a hundred times over, where they're both at a lost for words and they're both exhausted beyond belief–
It is here, Shizuo thinks, that he has never recalled a time where he's felt more human.
Some clarification:
I know these two don't actually chase each other around very often, but for the purposes of this story I think this headcanon works better :p
I think it was mentioned somewhere once that Shizuo wanted to be a detective when he was younger, it was a really cute idea and makes quite a lot of sense, so if someone can mention the link please tell me and I'll add it in!
Wow first story and it is alr angst
I think I made Izaya a bit too…cuddly. But it's my headcanon that he's a cuddly drunk if he has people to cuddle to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And I just like it.
I feel like I shifted the mood too quickly but, oh well, I'll try to work better on that In the future
All comments and critique is appreciated!