Chapter 3: If Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Then Nightmares Are Made of Pudding and Broken Bones
By the time Izaya comes home, it's already dark outside and Namie is long gone. He switches on the lights in his pitch black apartment and expects to be greeted by the mess of his outburst just earlier in the day. To his surprise, the floor is absolutely spotless with not a single piece of broken technology in sight, and given the lines on the carpet, he can tell it had been vacuumed. Izaya cracks a small smile as he slides over to his desk. He reads the small post it note Namie had written him.
[Don't bother ordering new equipment, I already did. Express delivery, should arrive in 1-2 days]
His smile widens. Ah, so she had cleaned up after all, even despite her refusal to do so earlier. He'd be sure to give her a raise later, he thinks. She deserves it.
Half an hour later Izaya lays in his bed with a glass of water in one hand. He'd already taken the painkiller just shortly after entering his house and admittedly, the pain in his wrist had subsided significantly. However, he debates if the consumption of the other little pill - or rather, extremely large pill- in his hand is a good idea. On the other hand, he knows he won't be able to fall asleep that easily once he closes his eyes. For the past few days, he's been feeling a little bit like an alien in his own bed. He's been shifting uncomfortably, sort of like the princess in that one fairy tale, with a pea under her mattress. Maybe it is the mattress?
Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure he'll go and order a new mattress. It will be a hassle, since most likely he will have to use his phone rather than ordering comfortably from his computer, but that's the price you pay, Orihara. That's the price you pay for destroying your own shit.
So what if Shinra had warned him not to mix the two together. What's the worst that could happen? With a shrug of his shoulders, Izaya decides to just fuck it. He pops the pill in his mouth and washes it down with copious amounts of water, just trying to get the oversized thing down his throat. Then, he lays flat on his back, head against the pillow and staring at the ceiling, eyelids getting heavier and heavier by the second.
A child. That's what he is. No older than ten. He's alone. All alone in the darkness. It's because his eyes are closed, that's why there's no light. Slowly, he flutters then open. Those chocolate orbs scan his surroundings. A house. A normal, middle class house for a normal, middle class family. In particular, he's the kitchen of such house.
He looks up at the towering rectangle of metal in front of him. The refrigerator. Of course, there is something in there that he wants. He opens it, eyes scanning the shelves for that one particular item. His smiling face turns into a scowl as he can't locate his prized possession.
A pudding cup. That's all he wants.
A single cup of pudding that could satisfy his sweet tooth. The very last pudding cup he'd been saving for himself. He'd been saving it all morning, he'd even put a note on it to warn any potential greedy hands that this pudding cup was indeed his, and only his to eat.
Yet now it's gone. That poor pudding cup.
Sadness. He feels great sadness bubbling in his chest. A sadness that dissipates into unbounded rage.
Who?
Who could have possibly dared to steal his very own pudding cup he'd been looking forward to eating all day? Could the world truly be this cruel as to deprive such a small child of his only joy in life? This one, simple pudding cup.
He whips his head around, looking for signs of the perpetrator who dared have the courage to steal his possession. There, sitting at the dining room table, is the criminal he's been looking for. Another child; a boy with dark hair and a stoic expression. The one and only pudding thief, with a spoon full of pudding in his mouth, cheeks moving happily as his tongue laps up the very last drops of the congealed vanilla substance.
The pain, the anguish, the betrayal!
His own brother!
Suddenly, he finds himself filled with so much rage he can barely contain it. It feels as if his heart will burst from the intensity of the emotion. It pounds against his chest, like a rhythmic drum going ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. A fire burns inside, threatening to break out.. Like a dragon charging up its breath, heat boiling in the pit's of his stomach.
So much fire.
Pure red. Red, red, red hot rage tainting his vision.
He gives into the rage.
And then, nothing. Just a sudden realization that he can no longer move.
His tiny hands are raised high above his head. In them is an object far too big to fit on his miniscule palms. 300 pounds of pure metal. A child, a mere child, lifting such a thing above his head. Such a thing should be impossible. Surely, he should be crushed by the weight of the refrigerator.
Such a small boy.
And he does break.
Every bone in his body splintering at once, so easily like stepping on twigs in the forest. One by one, snap, snap, snap. The sickening sound echoes through his ears, over and over on repeat like a broken record.
Then the pain comes, each of his limbs crying out for help. He can't move. He's paralyzed, forced to wallow in his own anguish.
Izaya's eyes fly open and he shoots up in bed, panting hard and drenched from head to toe in a cold sweat. He takes in deep and slow breaths, trying to regulate his temporary tachycardia. He lifts up his arms shakily and inspects them. Both are completely healthy, apart from his one broken finger which he'd already had looked over. Thank goodness, no other bones are broken.
He leans back against the pillow again, his breath falling into a steady rhythm as it should. His mind jumps back to the dream, the scene replaying itself behind his closed eyelids.
What kind of dream was that?
So intense, so vivid, so painfully and awfully real.
Izaya tries to ignore the pounding in his head as his gaze briefly shifts to the two bottles of pills on his bedside table.
So that's the worst that could happen, he thinks as he recalls Shinra's warning. A vivid hallucination brought on by a bad combination of two chemicals that shouldn't have been mixed.
Noted, Izaya won't be repeating that mistake again.
His eyes then shift to the digital clock next to the pills. 11:08, it reads. So he had actually managed to sleep through the entire night. This would be a positive, if not for the fact that now he'd overslept and was already behind on work. With a low groan, Izaya slides out of bed and prepares for the hard day ahead.
Well, it's not as bad as it could be. This time, his job isn't something particularly difficult, nor is it something that requires him to leave his house. Both of which are good things, considering his splintering headache and his currently borderline immobile hand.
Another low groan and he grabs the painkiller bottle off his nightstand before popping a pill and helping it down with a gulp of leftover water from the night before. It's been over 4 hours already, so he should be fine, and the pill should get his head and his finger in check. Both were starting to act up a little.
The biggest problem he'll have to face is the fact that he currently doesn't have a computer to work on. Not to mention, all the work he has to do from his phone will have to be done with one hand, as his injured one hurts every time he tries to hold his phone or move his thumb.
As soon as he trudges his feet to the foot of his staircase, Namie comes out of the kitchen and places a cup of warm tea on his painfully barren desk and gets to work, sorting out some old files.
He greets her quietly and gives his thanks for the tea, eyes glued to the desk and lamenting the loss of his poor equipment.
She grunts some sort of reply, and that's the end of their encounter.
The day rolls by painfully slow and Izaya, for the first time in a long while, feels bored and slightly restless. Yet at the same time, he doesn't want to do anything. Thankfully, no more bursts of random anger. Despite this, he still let's Namie go a little early, simply because he feels tired. Almost abnormally so, as if he'd been running around chasing crooks all day, despite the fact that he'd been stuck to his couch all afternoon.
At least he'd finished his work, so after an extremely difficult shower on account of his wrist, he finally gets himself to bed at an early hour. It must be the stress. Surely. The stress from his injury, the stress from the dream, the stress from…Shizuo.
Silently, Izaya's lips curl into a small frown as the thought pops up in his head. Why is he thinking of Shizuo, out of all people again? He pushes that thought of his mind, deciding to focus instead on wishfully hoping for pleasant dreams this night.
Ootoro.
That's what he wants to focus on: a humongous pile of ootoro all for him to devour.
He smiles at the thought. Yes, a sea of ootoro would be nice.
He closes his eyes, waiting for sleep to take him.
Yet after what feels like an eternity in bed, his eyes shoot open again. He really should have ordered that mattress after all. With an irritated groan, Izaya rolls over and pops the cap on those sleeping pills. Strange as their effect had been, they had been effective in 'knocking him out like light', to paraphrase Shinra. And since he'd taken the painkiller a few hours ago, the sleeping pill shouldn't be a problem.
He sighs and swallows the enormous thing whole.
He's a child again, the same one as the night before. This time, the setting is different. He's in the front of a classroom, waiting for the teacher to come. He starts to hear something from the back of the room. Two kids shouting for his attention, calling him stupid.
"Idiot, idiot~"
They tease. How mean, how hateful. Little children sure can be cruel.
But he's not sad.
No.
Instead, he's mad. That same fire bubbling in his chest again, forcing him to erupt. He snaps the pencil in his hands into two pieces. He picks up his desk with far too much ease and throws it straight at the kids, forcing it to crash into the wall behind them and create a large indent.
Another snap.
It's not another pencil snapping, it's his bones again.
The dream shifts.
Suddenly, he's on a total rampage, wreaking havoc and destroying everything in his path. He wants to let it out. Let it all out. The anger boils and bubbles inside him, like a hot kettle on a stove someone forgot to turn off. Even once the water evaporates, the kettle keeps heating up, burning up until it breaks. And still, the heat won't subside.
He huffs and puffs, like the big bad wolf about to blow the third little piggy's house down. He'd already destroyed the other two, leaving a trail of destruction and debris behind him. Except unlike the wolf, he has enough lung capacity to blow the last house down.
He busts straight through a concrete wall without difficulty, a stop sign clutched tightly in his little hand. He stands there, waiting for the anger to vanish and for the pain to set in.
And it does. Over and over.
Snap, snap, snap go his bones.
The scene shifts again. This time, he's sitting on a playground with his pudding stealing brother. They're sitting on one of those circular metal climbing cages, watching the sun slowly set beyond the skyline.
"Hey, are you scared of me?" He asks timidly.
Again and again.
"Are you scared of me?"
"Are you scared of me?"
"Are you scared of me?"
Each time he says those words, the child's face distorts into someone else completely, until he's staring at an exact mirror image ten year old Izaya. But if this child is Izaya, then who is he? Is he still Izaya, or is he someone else? Is the other Izaya also Izaya, or does he just look like him?
He looks down at his hands. His legs. His clothes. It's definitely Izaya's mind, but not his body.
Quickly, he returns his gaze to the other Izaya next to him, only in time for that Izaya to give him a gentle smile, one filled with the childhood innocence he'd still possessed back then.
"Not particularly," he whispers, the orange light of the setting sun illuminating his brown eyes and bringing out the crimson undertone in them.
"I'm not scared of you, [Ssssssssssshhhhh]."
The name is blurred, he asks little Izaya to repeat it.
"I said, I'm not scared of you, [Shhhhhhhh]," the other Izaya repeats calmly. Still, the name remains muddled.
All of a sudden, the other Izaya's face twists into a malicious smirk, all childhood innocence cast aside.
"I just want to kill you," he taunts and pushes him off the metal cage, sending him spiraling into the empty darkness below.
Izaya jolts awake, chest heaving with heavy breaths and body tingling from the impact of having fallen to the ground. Except he's not on the ground. He's on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his dark room.
Calm down, he tells himself as he checks the time briefly. 5:30 in the morning. He'd slept for a solid 8 hours, but what good was it if he was just going to wake up even more tired and exhausted than before? Some sleeping pills Shinra.
Really.
Once is chance, twice is coincidence. If it happens a third time, then surely it's happenstance.
If it happens one more time, then he'll know for sure: it's the pills causing this.