Chaper 21: A Poisoned Gift

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Izaya's eyes flung wide open, a single thought flooding his mind:

BATHROOM!

He jumped to his feet and ran upstairs, the burning need to relieve himself making him forget about the injuries his body had sustained earlier that day. He almost screamed in frustration as he fumbled with the belt, hands shaking as he yanked the zipper of his pants and pulled out his member, a satisfied sigh escaping his dry lips as his bladder gradually emptied, the pain in his nether regions ebbing away only to be replaced by a splitting headache. Once finished, he tucked himself away and walked towards the sink on unsteady legs.

"Ugh... what happe―"

His body tensed, bits and pieces of his meeting with Shinra brutally slamming through the haze that had settled over his mind. His hands froze under the cold water, the image of a terrified Shinra leaving him weak at the knees. Did I―

"NO!" he screeched in a totally uncharacteristic way while turning off the faucet with trembling hands. He rubbed his temples for a while before he raised his head to gaze at his reflection in the mirror, the sight of the dried blood on his face and throat making him gasp in surprise. He stared blankly at it for a while, the memory of Shinra repeatedly punching him in the face and breaking his nose quickly coming back to him. Oh...

He remembered threatening him with a gun and ordering him to take his clothes off, which was terrible in itself, but that wasn't what pained him to remember. No, what really squeezed his heart in a vice-grip was the memory of Shinra looking at him as though he had been betrayed by the only human he had made the mistake of caring about. Izaya felt ashamed. How could I do that to him, he thought dejectedly as he washed his face, but he ended up cringing when his eyes fell on the sewed up injury. A blind person could've done a better job, which meant that Shinra had obviously wanted the thing to scar. He should've known that drinking would be a bad idea, but he wasn't exactly expecting visitors, so he figured that drinking would numb him enough to stop the flashbacks from bombarding his already brittle sanity. What's so wrong with wanting to forget?

He wiped his face with a towel and left the bathroom, his mind set on getting rid of any sake he had left. He picked up the opened bottle he didn't get to finish before passing out and poured the remaining alcohol into the sink, glaring at the liquid as it flowed down the drain. With that out of the way, he picked up one of his many phones and called Shinra.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Izaya," he said and held his breath as the silence stretched between them.

"I'm sorry, I don't know anyone by that name," Shinra replied in an apparently cheerful tone, but Izaya could feel the coldness behind it, and he felt a chill running down his spine when he remembered the man's crazed expression as the doctor kept torturing him.

"You can't possibly be ser―" Izaya started, but he ended up losing his voice when the man ended the call.

He stayed like that for a long time, hand gripping the phone so tightly that his knuckles turned white. No! You can't do this me now!

Izaya knew that he wasn't the nicest person around, and while he did have a few fans, mainly disturbed teenage girls who thought they loved him, none of them knew the real him. What they obsessed over was not him. What they saw was nothing more than the carefully crafted image it had taken him years to perfect, just a masterfully designed mask for his humans to both fear and admire him, and because of it they thought he was indestructible. Shinra however knew the real him, the sometimes petty, insane, lonely Informant who loved humanity but received no love in return. Shinra knew that he could break, had seen him break, and instead of kicking him while he was down, like most humans would've done, he'd done everything in his power to get him back on his feet and even went as far as to protect him in more than one occasion. Such was the person he had betrayed. For the first time in his life, Izaya felt extremely guilty.

Still, he couldn't let it end like that. He shoved the phone into the pocket of his pants and went upstairs to put on a clean t-shirt. He grabbed the keys on the way to the door, slipped into his coat and headed for the Fukutoshin subway station. He wasn't sure what he was going to tell the man once he got there, but he would use the time it took to get from Shinjuku to Ikebukuro to think of a way to apologize.

Going out felt strange, and a bit terrifying, because each time he went to Ikebukuro he risked running into Shizuo. If the beast didn't kill him the next time they ran into each other...

I'd rather die than go through that again, he wanted to say, but he knew that he'd rather live no matter what.

He shivered at the thought, already regretting his decision of deleting the video he took of Slon and Kasuka. His plan hadn't worked out the way he wanted, but the video could've still been used as means of protection against Shizuo's wrath. Orihara Izaya, how could you make so many mistakes in one day? Then again, he could always bluff and see how far that got him.

He ignored the strange looks people gave him as he stepped into the subway and moved to sit at the back of the wagon. He felt tired, and his entire body was hurting, but he couldn't afford to rest, not before talking to Shinra. After the doctor had saved his life on more than one occasion, as well as going as far as to use his own body to shield him from an incoming attack, Izaya had not once thanked him. Orihara Izaya, you're such a horrible human being. The thing was that he used to be more than just a human before Shizuo shattered both his body and mind, but that was no longer the case, and he hated the beast for it. For him to be reduced to just a man... Shizu-chan, I hate you so much. The old Izaya was ruthless when it came to revenge, yet the new one―the human one―wasn't even capable of utterly crushing the monster that had reduced him to such a pathetic creature. And I was so close...

By the time he reached Ikebukuro he felt like he was about to throw up, the nausea he felt until then getting much worse. He paused just before leaving the station, the thought that Shizuo was somewhere nearby making a shiver run down his spine. He hadn't been to Ikebukuro alone since that day when he left Shinra's apartment, and each time he came back after that he'd been accompanied by Slon, the two of them working on trying to find the Awakusu-Kai spies. Hopefully, Shizu-chan is too busy begging Kasuka for forgiveness to worry about me.

Out of nowhere, he heard his phone ring and he picked it up.

"Oi, brat, are you messing with me?"

"Excuse me?"

"I've been calling you for hours now. Why didn't you answer?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear the phone ring," Izaya admitted cringing. "Did you―"

"No."

Izaya felt his blood run cold. If Kine didn't get rid of Slon's body, he risked getting caught by the police. "Why?' he asked, nearly choking on the word.

"No one was there."

Izaya had to lean against a store's window just to keep standing. How did he survive that?!

"Oi, you still there?" Kine asked, his voice conveying all the irritation he felt at that moment.

"I'm sorry, Kine-san, I'm going to have to call you back later," Izaya said before hanging up, his whole body trembling as an incessant shiver kept running up and down his spine. He wasn't one to have panic attacks, but he was pretty sure that he was really close to having one. There was no place in Tokyo for him to hide from the Russian assassin, not when the man could blow his brains out any time he wanted, which meant that the only way for him to survive would be to end the man's life while he was lying in some hospital bed. He typed a number on his phone and waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

"What do you want?"

"I need you to check the hospitals around Tokyo for a person named Slon," Izaya said while trying to sound like his usual calm self.

"Hey, I'm not your secretary."

"No, but you're still my employee, Ran, so I suggest you get to it."

"Hey bas―"

"The underground ones too. Let me know when you find him," he said and ending the call, knowing that Ran would do as he was told.

He stayed like that for a few more minutes, body trembling as he tried to chase away the nausea. If the old me would see me now, he would probably laugh in my face. He pushed himself away from the surface he was leaning against and kept walking until he found himself in front of the elevator inside Shinra's apartment building. He raised a hand to press the button, but he was grabbed by the arm and dragged behind the door leading to the staircase where he was harshly slammed into the wall.

He chuckled, the black smoke spilling out from underneath Celty's helmet a clear indication that she was furious. "Courier-san, this isn't like you." He'd seen the Dullahan angry before, but her anger had never been directed at him with such intensity, the force of her grip alone making him wince.

[What have you done to them?]

Izaya chuckled and tried to walk away, only to get slammed back into the wall by the seething Dullahan. "You'll have to be more specific if you want me to answer your question, because, as you may already know, I've done many things to a lot of people."

She grabbed the PDA with one of her shadows and typed with her right hand while keeping the other one firmly wrapped around his neck.

[Don't play dumb!]

"Does that mean that Courier-san thinks I'm smart? Why thank you," Izaya chirped as he raised a hand and tried to unclench Celty's fingers from around his neck, only to wince again when the hold tightened to the point that he was having troubles breathing. Seeing as how he was left with no other option, he tried to grab the switchblade from the pocket of his coat, but his eyes went wide when he couldn't find it there, and then widened even further when Celty threw the weapon down the stairs leading to the basement. "Was that really necessary?" he asked in a raspy voice, looking askance towards the place where the switchblade had been thrown.

[YES!]

Izaya's eyes fell on the PDA and he sighed. He had been wrong in thinking that his day couldn't have gotten any worse, because it did, the news that Slon wasn't dead turning to ash his already fried nerves. As though that wasn't already bad enough, he ended up running into the obviously pissed off Dullahan. He glared at her, unable to further maintain his usual calm mask. "Let go, now!" he hissed, his eyes conveying all the hate and rage he felt at that moment.

Celty didn't let go though, and instead she typed again on her PDA before shoving it into his face. [Tell me what you did to Shizuo.]

Izaya raised his fist and punched her helmet off, the thing hitting the ground with a loud noise that bounced off the walls. "What I did to him? WHAT I DID TO HIM?!" he snapped, his outburst surprising her to the point that the strength behind her hold lessened a bit. "What if he did something to me instead? What then? Ah, but Courier-san could never understand."

[What are you trying to say?]

Face morphed into a malicious expression, he glared at Celty, trying to decide whether to tell her or not. He was a curious creature by nature, so to observe a Dullahan as her world got turned upside down would most likely be highly fascinating and perhaps even entertaining. His smirk widened. "You're a monster."

[What does that have to do with anything?!]

Izaya chuckled darkly, his eyes burning with malevolence. "Courier-san would not be able to comprehend what lies beyond the closed door."

[I'm tired of games, Izaya, so start talking!]

"Be careful what you wish for."

[I want to know what's going on!]

"Are you sure you want to know what lies beyond it?" he asked and chuckled some more when she squeezed his neck tighter. So what if she knew? It wasn't like she would tell anyone. Celty would most likely not even feel sorry for him, and that was fine, because he would never want her pity, but at the very least she would stop harassing him each time they ran into each other. And wouldn't it be amusing if the monster turned out to be human enough to get outraged by Shizuo's actions? With some luck she might even abandon him. It wasn't fair that the beast had so many friends and people who cared about him while Izaya himself had no one. Well, there was Shinra, but Izaya had no idea whether or not he could mend their broken friendship. It was only fair that Shizuo got to lose a friend too. His eyes glowed dangerously as he stared at Celty, his voice dripping malice as he spoke his next words. "Blood, tears and pain are the only things you can find behind it, so knowing all of that, are you still sure that you want to open it?"

[Yes, I still want to know.]

Izaya's smirk widened, his features set into a crazed expression. "All right, I'll tell you, but remember one thing: YOU asked for it."

[Just tell me already!] she rushed him, black smoky shadows snapping back and forth in a display of pure irritation.

"Ah, but Courier-san might just be too innocent to know what I'm talking about."

[IZAYA!]

He raised his hands in a placating gesture. "All right, all right, I'll try to explain in such a way that even you can understand," he said and chuckled some more. "Do you know what Shinra thinks about every time he looks at you, or are you too blind to notice?"

[What are you talking about, you lowlife?]

"Sex, Courier-san, it's called sex, you might have heard of it before," Izaya chirped, thoroughly enjoying the embarrassment that seemed to have washed over the Dullahan, her stiff posture clearly indicating her discomfort. "I won't deny that Shinra loves you, in his own twisted way of course, but he's a man, and it's only natural that he wants more besides your ever pleasant company."

Celty wanted to type something, but instead she changed her mind and lowered the PDA.

"Shizu-chan and I had sex," said Izaya in an equally venomous and sadistic voice, his eyes burning with hatred. He would be lying if he said that he wasn't enjoying her distress.

Celty's fingers trembled as she kept typing and deleting words on her PDA before finally showing it to Izaya.

[Shizuo would never do something like that with you!]

Izaya burst into hysterical laughter, eyes tearing up. Whether it was from laughter or from the sheer embarrassment of what he was about to say next, he didn't know, but he kept on talking. "Ah, ah, but wait, there is a twist! You will probably not like what I'm about to say next, so I'm going to give you one last chance to walk away."

[Talk!]

Ignoring the nauseating feeling burning through the pit of his stomach, as well as the sound of his heart wildly hammering against his rib cage, he swallowed the lump in his throat and took a deep breath. "I didn't consent to it," he said, his quivering voice a testimony of mental anguish. "It was rape, Courier-san."

The shadowy smoke floating around them froze in mid-air.

"Do you know what that is?" Izaya continued, trying to blink away the blurriness in his eyes. "Rape is any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person."

Celty lost her grip on his neck, hand falling limply by her side.

Izaya watched her for a while, wondering what she would do next, but when he realized that she was too shocked to react in any way, he pushed himself away from the wall and went to retrieve his switchblade. He stopped behind her on his way to the door, hands trembling inside the pockets of his coat. "I told you that you wouldn't like it," he said, cracked lips set into a mirthless smile. He then pushed the door open and walked out, leaving Celty alone to gather her jumbled thoughts. Courier-san, what will you do now, hmm?

.

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A/N: Murasa: *blushes* Thank you so much! I don't even know what to say! ^.^ I kind of love to play with my readers' mind, so expects the unexpected and the characters making stupid mistakes, as well as twists and wtf moments. XD