Disclaimer: I don't own Durarara! nor it character. All original characters are of my own design and creation.
A/N: Congrats to flyfly246 for winning round 2 of the drabble contest! Their prize will be up soon. If you all would like the contests to continue let me know!
Celty was reluctant to show up when Izaya had texted her about a job. 'You'll just be on standby in case I need you.' He had said. 'I'll even still pay you for your time if it doesn't go through.' And although Celty didn't trust Izaya as far as she could throw him sometimes, she wasn't going to pass up the chance to make some extra money.
Plus, she guesses she does owe him a little. It had been Izaya's work as much as Shinra's that had gotten her the job in the first place. And, she didn't want to anger him by refusing. She had seen what the informant could do to people that angered him. There wasn't much he could really do to her, but Shinra….
"Hey, Celty, what's happenin'?" The headless fairie looks up at the blonde bartender standing beside her. Shizuo had seen her from the street near the park and decided to investigate. It wasn't like her to sit and people watch the crowd, so she had to have a reason.
:Oh, hey Shizuo. Izaya sent me a text to wait here on stand by for a possible job.:
Shizuo bristled at the mere mention of the dark eyed man. "Tsk! That damn flea! I saw him the other night. I don't get why he's back in Bukuro all of a sudden." 'But it can't be good!' Shizuo added mentally, sneering angrily as he pulled out his cigarettes.
Celty's head tilts a little before typing. :You saw him and you didn't try to fight him?: She hadn't heard about any confrontations between the two since the vending machine incident a few weeks ago.
Shizuo hissed through his teeth. "He slithered off like the snake his is before I could catch him!" He exclaimed, but then simmered and scratched the back of his head. "Plus, I was meeting Nausika. And…I didn't want to be late."
The dullahan's back straighten a little in surprise. 'Shizuo gave up fighting Izaya to go meet with that woman? Hmmm….' She thought before typing out. :How is Nausika by the way?:
"Fine, I guess. I haven't talked to her in a few days." Shizuo confessed solemnly before sitting down and taking a drag of his lit cigarette.
:Why? Did you get into a fight?:
"No, at least I don't think so. After everything that happened I took her to Russia Sushi 'cause she said she needed to eat because of…that. Then she went home. I offered to go with her, to make sure she got there ok, but she said she wanted to be by herself. So I let her be." Shizuo explained.
Celty pauses for a moment before typing :You should give her a call:.
"Why would I do that?" He didn't know what girls meant when they said they 'wanted to be alone' or 'they need space'. He figured she'd probably call when she wanted to see him. If she wanted to see him. He didn't want to bother or crowd her. But…still. He wanted to make sure she was ok. He knew it was weird to miss someone you just met and barely know, but he thinks he does. He thinks he misses her. Someone who is calm and unafraid of him. Someone who he now knows understands. Someone who…doesn't think he's a monster.
Celty is typing again.
:You seem down about it. And you seem to like her very much.: Her pad reads and Shizuo turns his head away sharply, under the pretense of blowing smoke away from her none existent face.
"What if...she doesn't want to talk to me?" 'What if she doesn't want to see me again?' He thinks but before he can go further down the rabbit hole with that though he hears Celty's key taping.
:You won't know unless you try.:
Shizuo's brain churns as his lungs inhale more smoke thinking about what Celty words. She knows, better than anyone perhaps, how hard he is on himself sometimes. So he thinks maybe what's she's really trying to tell him is more than just a phone call.
Before he could ponder the thought anymore the sound of a squabble reaches his ears.
"What the hell? A lover's spat?" Shizuo questions out loud at the couple across the way. The girl breaks from of the boy she's with a runs past him and Celty. The latter seems startled by the girl and takes off after her. Shizuo isn't sure what's going on but chases after her. It's not like Celty to do things rashly, so it must be important.
Celty catches up to her quickly and grasps the girls arm. The mystery girl freaks immediately screaming for Celty to go away. Shizuo comes up a second later and tries to diffuse the situation. People are staring.
"Alright, stop with the hysterics. Relax we're not here to hurt you. Calm down." He says evenly, but it seems to have no effect. The girl suddenly turns on him, screaming and flailing her other arm wildly. She hits him in the face a few times. It doesn't hurt but it's annoying, like a fly buzzing around his face.
Then, suddenly, there's a sharp pain in his leg. Confused, Shizuo looks down and sees a pen in it. And that he's now bleeding. The boy from earlier is crouched in front of him now by the girl and stabs another pen in his other leg. Shizuo, more confused as to why he's getting pens stuck in him, watches the boy rise with a serious look on his face.
"You let go of her right now!" He demands, threatening Shizuo with yet another pen.
The confusion of the situation is enough to give the girl a chance to escape. She flees and Celty seems to debate going after her or helping Shizuo.
"Go on, don't worry about me. This doesn't hurt." The blonde assures her before taking off his glasses. "I don't know what this is all about, but you do what 'ca gotta do." He tells her and smacks himself a little to sike himself up for the impending fight. "Hn, I've always wanted to say this: go on ahead and leave this one to me!" Shizuo says and does a cocky sort of move he's seen in action movies that he's also always wanted to try.
Celty clasps her hands together in thank you and then speeds off on her bike after the girl.
"Get your hands off her!" The kid yells, chasing after the party, which has no increased by one other boy pulling the girl down the street.
"Easy pal you're not going anywhere." Shizuo says and grabs the guy by the collar, effortlessly lifting him in the air. The guy is flailing wildly. Apparently a common trait of the 'happy couple'.
"Let me go! Let me go!" He cries, but Shizuo isn't listening.
"Tell me, is that your girlfriend?" The blonde asks in a bored tone.
"She is! Fate brought us together!" He tells him passionately. But Shizuo is unswayed.
"So then, why is she acting like that?" Shizuo asks, still seeming bored with the situation while keeping a grip on the kid.
"Like I'd know!" He cries. And suddenly Shizuo isn't bored anymore.
"What the hell kind of answer is that?!" The ex-bartender roars and swings the kid around like a rag doll before he sends him flying.
He bounces off a delivery truck and into some bushes. Sore, but mostly unscathed, Shizuo picks him up again calmly, but by the front of his shirt this time.
"So you say that you love her, but you don't know anything about her. Guess you're a pretty lame boyfriend then, aren't 'ca?" Shizuo accuses but the kid doesn't seem to get it.
"All that I need to know about her is that I love her. That's all!" He says, still passionately foolish.
"Ok, then educate me. How did fate bring you both together?" Shizuo asks, shaking the kid a little in irritation.
"It's because I love her! It's just as simple as that! Love is a feeling, you can't explain it! It has no words!" The kid cries, still on his love crazed soap box and Shizuo is getting more annoyed. 'Stupid kid! How can you be in love with someone you don't even know?!' He thinks, ignoring the almost silent voice inside him that's calling him a hypocrite. "Now let me go." The kid demands. "My actions will prove my love! I'll prove it!" Then the kid tries to stab Shizuo in the face with another pen, but Shizuo catches it with his hand. Well, more through his hand.
The blonde lowers his impaled hand to reveal an almost homicidal smirk. "I like you a lot better than Izaya. So I'm only gonna send you home with this!" He tells him and then head butts the kid's forehead before depositing him in a heap on the ground.
Then Shizuo calmly takes out his glasses again, ignoring the crowd, and walks away. "Gah, this will just bleed if I take it out. Better stop again get a Band-Aid. Or maybe super glue will do the trick?"
The bell above the drug store dings when Shizuo exits it. With his newly purchased box of Band-Aids he's ready to go home and call it a day.
The clerk behind the counter hadn't said anything about his predicament when he comes up but fretfully looks at the blonde like he wants to. Shizuo just assumes he's scared that if he asks he'll get pissed and wrecks the place. Which Shizuo has to admit is a 50-50 shot. But Shizuo remains calm, hands him his money, and walks back out just like that.
He uses his uninjured hand hand to pull out a cigarette and is about to light it when he hears a sudden, "Hey hot stuff got a light?"
Shizuo sneers, thinking it's a prostitute on an early shift, but then gets a stunned look with wide eyes when he see who it is.
"Hey," He says smoothly, feeling a little out of place that she's suddenly here in front of him.
Nausika smirks in a Cheshire like manner before giving a shrug. "I saw your hair through the window. Are those…pens in your legs?"," She replies, seeing his confusion, before her face blossoms into a look of morbid confusion.
The question knocks Shizuo out of his trance and he flounders for a second before coming back. "Oh yeah, I'm tryin' to fix that." He says and tries to rubs the back of his neck. But forgot there was a pen in his hand.
"There's a pen in your hand too." Nausika says still with that morbid curiosity.
"Yeah, I was going to fix that once I got this straight." He says gesturing at himself because honestly he didn't know which one to tackle first.
"Why are there pens in you?"
"Some kid stabbed me with 'em when I wouldn't let him chase after his hysterical girlfriend." He explains calmly with a shrug. The other blonde arches a sculpted brow.
"Ah…" Nausika says, not really understanding but going with it. "You want some help?" She asks, back to her normal calm. Shizuo gives a small 'hn?' before the space between them is suddenly gone in a few quick strides of her long legs "I'm not your doctor friend, but I know some first aid. Despite their oddity they don't seem that bad." She tells him, his hand in both of hers as she looks at it critically.
"Um…yeah, sure. But I was just gonna get a Band-Aid…" Shizuo replies, stammering a little. Shizuo feels his face heat up in embarrassment at her suddenly so close to him. He's not used to people being close to or touching him. Let alone women.
Nausika chuckles a little and glances up at him through her lashes. "They may not be that bad, but they're a step up from Band-Aid bad." She says before dropping his hand. "If you don't want to you can say no." She adds with her hands on her hips.
"No, no! I didn't say that." He replies quickly and she chuckles again.
"Ok. I'm assuming you can walk fine right?" She says and heads down the street.
"Home sweet home." Nausika dead pans when they get to her apartment, taking off her shoes and putting her jacket on a hook. Shizuo takes off his shoes too. He doesn't want to be rude to her house. "Have a seat on the couch. I'll get my kit." She says as heads deeper into the apartment.
Shizuo sits as instructed and takes a minute to look around. Her place is nice, he thinks. It's slightly bigger than his, but has a standard layout like most single person apartments, and is way cleaner. He's not a pig by any means. He takes good care of his stuff. But, looking around, Shizuo thinks that it's perhaps a little too clean and organized for someone who's been here for a few weeks now. It looks like it hasn't been lived in, like a showcase apartment really. Where's the pictures? The knick-knacks? The livable clutter?
It's really weird he thinks. But he likes the blue curtains on the main window. Those are nice.
"Ok, let's get started." Nausika says once she's back in the room. She kicks the coffee table a little bit with her foot to give her more room to crouch in front of him. And then sets the box on the wooden table.
"That's your first aid kit?" Shizuo questions skeptically. "I don't think Shinra has a kit that big." Her kit is more like a tackle box of medical supplies. He's not even sure what you would keep in a box that size. The small white box you can get at the drug store is more his speed.
"You can never be too prepared." She says with a slight chuckle, sitting on her ankles in front of him pulling out gauze and medical tape and antiseptic for him before getting to work.
"Seems kind of extensive...for someone like you." The blonde comments, not bothering to flinch at the sting of the antiseptic on his hand.
"It wasn't for me most of the time. It was for people I knew." She replies causally, seeming more focused on the task than conversation. He thinks she looks kind of….sexy like that, all serious and focused. But the thought makes his face heat up again and he mentally berates himself for acting like a child.
"Back at your old place?" He asks suddenly.
"Yeah. This is gonna hurt." She warns, an obvious dodge of his question, and he's about to tell her that when the pen is suddenly ripped from his hand quickly and gauze is placed on both sides of the small hole.
"Goddamnit!" He roars painfully.
"I warned you." She says coolly, wrapping medical tape around the gauzes to secure it to his hand.
"It hurt worse coming out than it did going in."
"That's what she said." Nausika mutters with a smirk that gets her a glare from the ex-bartender before she holds up her hands in apologetic surrender before cutting the tape.
"What did you do? Back there I mean. Did you go to school somewhere? Work? Family? Friends?" Shizuo asks and Nausika glances up at him for a second before starting on his legs.
"I was home schooled after middle school and I did odd jobs for work mostly." She replies, applying antiseptic gingerly. But Shizuo gets the same feel that he did the other night that these answers are forced and rehearsed. But they seem to be less full of lies, more half-truths really. He still doesn't like it.
"Odd jobs that can get you a place like this?" He questions critically, thinking maybe that if he can blow wholes in her story she'll come clean. This place is nice. And if he remembers right she still doesn't have a job at the moment. So where did the money come from?
"My sister and I saved a lot for a long time to come here." She replies, but her shield is still intact.
Shizuo growls a little. "Still, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. What kind of-"Not to interrupt but do you want me to fix your legs with your pants on or off?" The blonde on the floor is suddenly up on her knees between his and very close to him. He can smell the mint of her toothpaste her face she is so close to him and feel the heat from her hands on his legs that heat seems to go straight to his face; and other places.
"O-on is fine…" Shizuo stammers horribly, ridged as a board, and darts his face away. He doesn't want her to see his face lit up like a tomato, blushing like a girl. 'Damnit!'
Nausika sits back on her ankles, realizing that he's uncomfortable and that the ploy may have been a little cruel. She feels bad. She finds that odd. "Why the sudden questions?" She asks and removes one pen before giving it the same treatment as his hand.
Shizuo looks back at her and returns to his previous position. "It's not sudden. You said you wanted to know about me. Why can't I know about you?"
"I'll tell you anything you want to know. But I don't want to talk about that." She responses flatly.
"Why not?" Shizuo snaps, getting frustrated that she's dodging him.
"Because I just don't." She tells him, with a little more force this time and perhaps removes the last pen a bit more roughly because of it.
Shizuo shouts in pain before snapping at her again. "Why not?!" It's louder this time. He doesn't get it! He's trying to get to know her. Make an effort. And she's stone walling him!
Nausika's face snaps up toward his, a glare in her pretty teal eyes. "I uprooted my entire life to move to this city that I had never even been to or knew anyone from. Don't you think that would be a hint that I don't want to talk about it?" She snaps coldly.
And Shizuo flinches before he deflates sadly. "Sorry." He mutters. Ok, he gets it now. He does kind of realize that that was pretty stupid. And he doesn't have the right to ask her about things she doesn't want to tell him. 'Idiot'
Nausika pauses in packing her kit back up and looks over her shoulder at him briefly. She seems to think long and hard about something before she sighs quietly as if coming to a decision on something before turning around to face him.
"My name is Nausika Yumi. I'm 24 and was born in Ibaraki. I'm half Japanese and American. My mother died when I was fourteen and I didn't know my father than well. He's dead. I had a sister named Chidori who was four years younger than me. I hate cabbage and lemon jello and the color lime green. I like almost any other food. I like cooking, classical music, and emerald green. I have mild insomnia and a fear of birds. And in the past 15 seconds you now know more about me than probably anyone else knows about me." She told him and Shizuo looks at her in surprise. "Feel better?" She asks and he actually smiles a little bit.
"Yeah, I guess. Birds hn?"
"They are awful, beady eyed creatures that will peck out your eyes in your sleep." She says in justification. "Is there anything else you want to know?"
"Yeah, just one thing." He says and she calmly waits for him to ask, minus the tense in her shoulders. "I was thinking, the other night, when you told me about your..thing, when you said when it started. What did you mean by that?"
There's a beat as Nausika seems to wrap her head around the question and memory lane as she snaps the box closed. "I mean my mother threw a bottle at me when I was six and I caught it with my head." She says finally much to Shizuo's visable surprise. "To be fair though I was egging her on. My sister wouldn't stop crying and she really hated that. I figured if she was pissed at me, she wouldn't throw it at her." She adds easily, much more easily than Shizuo thinks such a story deserves, while standing. "Are you hungry?"
"What?" Shizuo asked, a little startled and confused.
"Are you hungry? Cause I'm hungry and I was going to make some food. Would you like some?" Nausika asks more clearly with her arms crossed under her breasts like she's waiting.
"You're not gonna kick me out?" He asks. He would have expected her to ask him to leave.
But she just shrugs and gives a casual, "No, why?"
And the simple statement, whether it's how she said it or whatever he's not sure, suddenly kicks a light bulb kicked on in his head.
She didn't mind...
So Shizuo drops it and smiles slightly. "Yeah, actually, I'm starving. If you don't mind."
"Wouldn't have asked if I did." She mutters, hopping over the couch rather than going around it like a normal person to head for the kitchen. "I'm in the mood for Italian. So I'm making Italian." She adds while rummaging through her cabinets.
"That's fine." He says plainly, with that normal even droll he has when he's not raging, before leaning against the bar that separates the living room and the kitchen. "It was a refrigerator."
"Hn?" Nausika says curiously, popping her head out of her own fridge.
"When I…first used my strength. I was mad at my younger brother Kasuka and tried to throw it at him." Shizuo explains sheepishly, scratching the side of his nose.
"Why were you going to throw a fridge at him?"
"I don't know. I think he ate my pudding." He replies because he honestly doesn't remember at this point what it was about. Just that it was something stupid. And he had been angry.
"You were going to kill your brother over pudding?" She asks with that 'you're an idiot' expression.
The blonde male growls slightly, feeling mocked. "I was like seven and I wasn't thinking!" He shouts before simmering quickly. "I didn't even get to throw it at him. I broke about eight or nine bones before I could go through with it."
"Did your brother at least apologies for eating your pudding?" She asks over the clang of pots getting set up.
"No."
"Rude!" She accuses looking momentarily offended by that. "You eat a guy's snack-pack and piss him off enough to try and throw a fridge at you, the least you could do is say 'hey bro, sorry I ate your pudding cup. My bad.'" She says, the ending in what he's guessing is supposed to be a mimic of a man. It's an awful attempt. But it's so awful that it makes Shizuo laugh hard enough to hold his sides. She tells him it's not that funny, but for some reason he thinks it is.
They spend the rest of the evening chatting about this and that. When they run out of things they stop until one of them picks it back up again. Apparently they share a fondness for action movies, milkshakes, and fruit tarts. He tells her about his brother and she tells him why she loves the beach. The store Nausika gets her groceries from doesn't sell Italian foods, so she has to use soba noodles and homemade sauce instead. Shizuo doesn't mind. It's odd but it's good. It was really good. He loves it really.
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