Written for the KinkBingo challenge on Dreamwidth
Title :The Boundaries of Touch
Prompt : Leather/latex/rubber
Rating : PG
Pairings :Izaya/Shinra, Shizuo/Celty, Shinra/Celty
The Boundaries Of Touch
"Sometimes," Shinra sighs, "I think you do this on purpose."
"Why would—ow!" Izaya grimaces at one hard – overly so, he thinks – swipe of antiseptic soaked cotton over the wound on his arm. "Why would I do something like that?"
"Ah, don't you know? I've given up trying to understand why you do anything. But especially the things you know will only turn out like this. Isn't that the definition of madness? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?"
"Do you think I'm mad?"
"Not particularly."
Izaya closes his eyes, focusing instead on the brush of glove-clad fingers against his skin, a sensation as familiar as breathing, and blinking, considering the amount of times Shinra's had to patch him up.
"You're such a liar, Shinra."
Or maybe they both are, because even if neither of them know for sure why he continues to do these things, fight these pointless fights, they both know what he gets out of it. Why, sometimes, he feels perfectly fine about letting that Neanderthal bastard beat him to within an inch of his life.
Shizu-chan's useful, sometimes. After all, without him there'd be nothing for Shinra to fix.
No… none of them can get away with 'I don't know' in this messy, tangled game they're playing.
Gloved fingers make their way to his wrist, clinical and impersonal. He feels his pulse pound against the thin barrier. He's never known which one of them Shinra really wears them for. Which one of them he's trying to protect. Maybe neither of them.
"Your heart's still racing." Shinra observes casually.
"Shizu-chan's always good for an adrenaline rush, ne?"
"I suppose so." Textured, grainy fingertips press against the side of his neck, like checking his heart rate there will somehow yield a different result. The definition of madness. Izaya smiles. "You know, though, no one would believe me if I tried to convince them you really do have something beating in there."
"Are you suggesting I'm not human?" He shakes his head, if only to feel the latex graze his throat. "Planning on adding me to the little collection you've got going?"
"Not really."
"Ah, you wound me, Shinra."
"But I only mean it inn a good way." A second hand touches the other side of his neck, but the angle to which Shinra tilts his head obscures his eyes. "Besides, you'd hate being collected."
"Well, there is that."
The cut on his arm – he doesn't even remember how it got there, too drunk on the thrill of the fight to care; maybe it was the point where Shizuo had him pinned hard against that broken chain link fence – still bleeds a little when he reaches up, making cuffs out of flesh and bone and locking them around Shinra's wrists. Just before latex meets skin. If Shinra wants to impose these boundaries, Izaya can play along with that. For now. Though it's been 'for now' for a very long time.
"But you're the doctor - what's the verdict? Not a monster?"
"Hmm… I wouldn't go that far."
Closing his eyes, he listens to his heartbeat against gloves, to the quiet, reassuring sounds of Shinra's apartment, and the dull roar of the street drifting in from the balcony door left ajar. Something heavy and powerful revs somewhere down the block.
"Celty'll be back soon, ne?" He turns his head, feeling the rubber snag on his hair as he presses his cheek into one gloved palm. It's fine; he's not touching, after all. Not in any way Shinra can feel, much as the powdery membranes are a part of him by now, intrinsic as the coat and the glasses and oblivious, cheerful eyes.
"Yeah." Shinra nods. "But she's taking Shizuo home. She probably won't be in any hurry."
Even as the bike scythes silently through the dark streets of Ikebukuro, the wind that buffets his shirt doesn't seem to touch her. Like it knows she's something that doesn't quite belong to this world, it's as though the natural order of things don't apply to her.
He kinda believes they don't apply to him either, but then dumb shit – like gravity, or the fact that if he punches the goddamn flea hard enough it will still hurt for no good reason – keeps proving otherwise.
She's still the closest thing he knows to a kindred spirit.
The first time she gave him a ride home – probably after another fight, and another round of Shinra wailing that he didn't want his apartment ransacked again – he hadn't known what to do with his hands. He wasn't much good with touchy-feely crap at the best of times, even back before he'd realized what she was.
Not that it mattered. It didn't matter now, it just meant he didn't have to think so hard with his arms wrapped around her waist, the helmet she'd fashioned for him lowered against her shoulder.
How it can be so many different things at once? The helmet's solid; those gloves she lent him felt almost weightless. And even though he knows it can't be, the skin-tight suit feels like leather, pliant and subtly textured. If he tries, he can almost imagine it creaking softly as she moves.
And he still doesn't know how he could've been so stupid for so long. Not when the suit flares out the way it does over her hips. He can still balance fine – still trusts her to keep them that way – when he slides his hands over her stomach to bracket those hips, thumbs tracing the bones he can feel under the leather.
The quickest way to his apartment would be to take the next left. Celty doesn't even slow down, just keeps going. Shizuo closes his eyes, trusting the shadows and the dark to keep them safe as he holds on tight again.
It's easy to pretend it is leather, as warm as that second-skin feels against his own. Warmer than she is, really, but it's never bothered him any. He remembers one of those dumb epithets he'd written off as garbage the first time he heard it; cold hands, warm heart. He doesn't know whether she has one, but it's still warmer than pretty much anyone he knows, and anyway… he figures if you already accept things are seriously fucked up going in, nothing much can faze you.
It says something when this is about the least fucked up thing in his life.
The wind whips back tendrils of shadow from beneath her helmet, and they curl and lick at his visor like playful little reminders that maybe she knows what without him having to say so. Sometimes he thinks it's kind of lame that a girl without a head is better at making conversation than he is, right before one of those comfortable silences makes him forget why he was worried about it in the first place.
He pretends he can smell the leather as he breathes in, wondering if she can manipulate those shadows to be anything. He tries to imagine her in something else, something soft and flowing, but it always comes back to this. To the contours of this suit under his hands on the backstreets of Ikebukuro, and that's enough. It really is. He's glad for that clearly marked boundary. Just like he knows his hands will never stray from the smooth, sleek lines of shadow-leather.
It stays safe that way.
He doesn't want to let go when the bike stops in front of his apartment. She doesn't make him. The PDA's somehow magically there when he finally gets off the bike, feeling stupid and exposed when the shadows around his face melt away on a caress.
[Will you be okay?]
"Yeah." He waves off the concern the way he always does, half-wondering what she'd do if he said 'no'. Hands shoved in his pockets, he turns away. "I'll be fine. You should go, he's probably worried about you."
And she will, because it's true. But it's a long time before he hears the bike roar as it moves away from the curb.
Shinra's waiting up for her when she gets home, and now and then she wonders if he does it because he knows. Or maybe it's because she does.
"Did Shizuo get home safely?" he smiles.
She nods. [Izaya left already?]
"Hmm."
The living room has been cleaned up. There's no evidence of the evening's disturbance, which, given the parties involved is no mean feat. Has it become second nature already, this smoothing things over, this covering things up?
Shinra flops next to her on the couch, sighing loudly. "At least they didn't break much this time."
[Next time, we should just turn off the lights and pretend we're not home.]
"Oh, my Celty's devious. I like it." Shinra laughs. "Ah, it's worth a try." And he's still smiling, but there's an edge she doesn't hear all that often in his voice. The one that reminds her there's someone few people see living behind that careless smile. "I don't think things can keep going like this forever, can they?"
[No.] she says, even though they both know they'll have this exact same conversation next time. Just like last time. And the time before that. 'Forever' becomes relative, sometimes.
A fingertip traces its way down her spine, and she realized how tense she is, hunched over her PDA as though proximity to the device will make the things she wants to say any easier. He's still wearing his gloves; the latex catches on her suit in slow little shudders and if she could let out a breath she thinks it'd probably feel like that too.
He chuckles softly when he notices. In peripheral awareness, she senses a smile as he snaps off the gloves, tossing them thoughtlessly onto the coffee table.
"We don't need these now, right?"
And when he reaches for her again through the flurry of melting shadows, it's skin touching skin, with no blurred boundaries in between.