AN: Day 1 of the 30 day OTP challenge; all of these will be pretty short. First theme is "holding hands".

T for language, a smidgen of violence, and a whole lot of bad intentions.

I claim no rights.

Unbeta'd.

Holding Hands

Shizuo's fingers were rough with calluses; his palms were the same. It came with the job, he supposed. Constantly, day in and day out, he used his hands to beat, to pummel, to just plain hurt people. And even if those saps deserved it, it never failed to leave a pit in the bottom of his stomach at the end of every day. It was a weight Shizuo had come to be familiar with. Violence, he snarled inside his head. It was always violence.

He didn't like violence, but violence sure liked him. Liked him enough to pay the bills, at the very least. He hated that he had to rely on it. Hated that he when he looked at his hands, he was filled with the same disgust that he felt when looking at his reflection. Shizuo didn't want to see his hands and see himself. He didn't want to be tarnished, or be a tool designed for pain. But those were the facts, and he couldn't change them. No matter how much that dark weight seethed inside his guts.

Shizuo scoffed to the empty air. He didn't even know why he was thinking about this all of a sudden. His callused fingers were twiddling an unlit cigarette right beside his frowning mouth, and he reached into his pocket for a light. The lines between his brows started to relax at the promise of a good, clean drag of nicotine. A cigarette could cure all worries, he thought. Some might call him simple, but he really believed that.

His face went slack at the first inhale. Shizuo had been smoking for so long that the effect had lost most of its euphoric quality, but it was the thought that counted. He'd take psychosomatic bliss over none at all.

He stood against the outside wall of a cheap motel a little ways into a back alley, next to an employee entrance, presumably where the staff went for breaks. Tom was still inside, collecting another check from another broken body. And here he was, enjoying a cigarette afterwards. Same ole, same ole. Of course it was mundane, but like he'd said, it paid the bills. And he sure as hell had a lot of them to pay. His teeth bit down on the filter just thinking about it.

There was a flash of movement at the edge of his vision that distracted him from the downward spiral of despair that came with any thought of his monetary problems. Shizuo couldn't quite place what it was, as it had scampered away from him just as he'd turned his head to face it. He didn't like that; something was up. He flicked his cig of the culminating ash and returned it to the corner of his mouth, and went to investigate.

He stalked further into the alley, where the shadows stretched longer and wider, hidden from the setting sun. The alley opened up to a small side street, which led to even more winding streets, and Shizuo figured that whatever it was could already be long gone. But, he knew it was near. The tight coiling of his muscles on the ready was indicative of that. The cigarette in his mouth burned dully, and ash fell unheeded whenever he would crane his neck to contemplate his surroundings. There was danger here, he could feel it, why wouldn't it just-

"Izaya." A cold blade had whipped out of seemingly nowhere and nicked his cigarette, sending the burning tip to the ground, and he spat out the other half to follow.

From behind came a voice, as sharp as that blade and just as teasing, "Aw, how did you know?" Shizuo judged he was about an arm's length away, going by the knife that was pressed against his nape.

"The fuck are you doing here!? This isn't even Ikebukuro!" He had no doubt that any movement from him would be enough inclination for Izaya to sever the vertebrae at the base of his skull, so no matter how much the pull of violence was making his body tense and shake, he stayed put.

"As charming as it is that you expect me in Ikebukuro, you have to realize that I do have a few other haunts. I would be missed too greatly otherwise."

"Sorry if I find that hard to believe." Shizuo spat out as condescendingly as he could. The tip of the blade dug into his skin slightly, drawing a fine line of blood that slowly soaked into the lapel of his vest. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white and aching.

"Are you saying you wouldn't miss me if I was gone?" Izaya's voice was a few steps closer, and he could nearly feel breath puff out against the minute cut on his neck. It seemed as if he was actually waiting for a legitimate answer. Oh, if Shizuo could move without the immediate threat of death, he'd give Izaya all the answers he could take. And then some.

"Yes." The sound that came out was less a word and more a bearing of teeth ready to sunder flesh. There was silence, which Shizuo thought as odd, and then a quite shuffle as the knife was gone from his neck. In that split second Shizuo moved, but Izaya was faster. As he was whirling around, his wrist was caught in a grip so unforgiving he thought he could hear the narrow bones creak.

In a flick of blade quick enough that he barely had time to register the outrage, the palm connected to his caught wrist was sliced open in a diagonal that matched his life line. And then Izaya, who's hand had a similar self-inflicted wound, grasped his own and held on. Shizuo barely had the sense of mind to feel their fingers entwining.

It lasted for two stuttering heartbeats. The smearing of blood, the stinging brush of raised skin... even while it was happening he half believed it wasn't. Izaya spoke with his gaze intent on their hands as he sluggishly disentangled them.

"Now you'll always remember me, Shizu-chan. You'll have to." When their eyes met for the first and last time of the evening, Shizuo briefly saw a disparate, manic gleam there before Izaya slipped away as smoothly and efficiently as he'd come. He was dumbfounded, stuck watching the retreating back become dim and then dimmer.

Shizuo stood rooted where Izaya left him, staring at his bleeding hand, unable to look away even as the sluice of blood became uncomfortable. The cut was measurably deep; he'd probably need stitches. He tried to force some fury, and when that didn't work, some annoyance. But there was none. Not right then.

Right then, he couldn't feel much of anything. Not even the self-deprecating disgust his hands always brought out of him. Shizuo felt nothing but the precise dig of the blade, the wet warmth of an open palm, the press of fingers between his.

The sensation of Izaya's calluses dragging against his own.

END

WHY CAN'T I HOLD ALL THIS SUBTEXT? I don't know where this came from... I was staring at the blank screen one minute and the next, this angsty Shizuo-centric thing suddenly appeared.

You'll be seeing me every day for the next 29 days, so I hope you enjoyed, for your sake. Next theme is "Cuddling Somewhere".