Author's Note: Just a bit of a filler chapter here.I'm working on the first chapter to another Shizuo/Izaya fic at the moment so I want to get that finished to post up tomorrow~. It's an AU and I'm really excited about it. It will probably only be updated every other day or something when I do post it, but I'll let you all know in the hope you'll enjoy it just as much as this one~?

~lol I'm guessing the smut went down okay?~

It was dark when Shizuo woke and the curtains in his bedroom remained open, flooding the room with eerie light from the enchanted metropolis below the apartment complex. It was getting late from what he could tell from the time flashing on the clock on the bedside table in blinking green digits, flashing in the dim light. He'd had to squint at the little green numbers illuminated on the digital object, but it told him that it was gone eight in the evening. The few minutes that passed were blissful, calm and serene and nice with those last little rays of sleep clinging onto Shizuo with pearly, shadowy fingers, clouding everything in his mind except the question of where the hell the day had gone; it seemed to have slipped away without him noticing, while he had merely slept on, oblivious to the world until the daylight had seeped away into the dark corners of the city and a chill had set into the room, rousing him from his slumber with cool fingers pressing at his skin.

That haze of sleep vanished after a while, a minute or two or three after he first woke, disappearing into the cool air of his apartment, lost in the shadow of the other room. It was then that the realisation of that morning and its events came crashing down onto him, all at once, like a torrent of rain that he had ended up tangled up in, lost in a hurricane without an anchor to drop in the storm. The calm air around him vanished, and he felt agitated, irritated and horrified all at once. Love, heh, had love caused this situation? This feeling of- of whatever it was inside? Love, fuck love and fuck the flea too.

Heh. No. Already done that, hadn't he?

He bolted up, and the covers that had been thrown messily over his lower half dropped to pool at his hips, crinkling and folding over each other. He could feel the chill on his skin, naked and bare. He could see the bed covers, half tossed off of the bed and onto the floor. He could see the remains of his clothes, his underwear, thrown across the room. He could feel a dull ache, that warm sated tinge in his muscles. He could smell and taste something on the air, that tinge of sex or something from earlier, he only vaguely remembered it from that night with that man, weeks ago. He could fill the lingering touch of fingers raking down his back, realising there would probably be scratches left to shame him in secret. He could feel the ghostly figure of a tongue against his, a tongue on him, licking and sucking and—

No. No. No.

Was this what Izaya had been planning from the start? Was this the purpose of his whole twisted game? Make Shizuo fall in love, make him weak and open and make him change and betray his own principles, and then to fuck him, to do whatever, and then just leave and watch him crumble – was that it? Was it? It sounded like something he would do. Something that he would get a kick out of. Bastard. Or was the plan to just destroy Shizuo from the inside out, to do what they had done earlier and force the blonde to relive it, to think about it over and over, hate himself for doing it? Shizuo didn't know, he didn't, the whole situation had just gotten so much worse. Shizuo had still be in a conflict with himself, still trying to deal with the whole Nakura is Izaya thing, still sorting through the falling in love with a man that didn't exist thing, and then this?

Damn that fucking flea. He was— he was—

How had Shizuo even gone along with it? How had the damn fucking louse managed to get him to do all those things without Shizuo getting mad, without Shizuo tossing him out the fucking window and slamming it closed behind? It was— god, he didn't know. He didn't have an answer, to anything, he didn't know why, and he was pretty sure that he wouldn't like the answer anyway but— but what?

With a sigh, Shizuo brought his hands up to rub at his face, his eyes, as if by rubbing away the sleep that it would rub away this horrid situation, would rub away that morning and what had happened in it. The images stayed burned on the backs of his eyelids, even when they were shut. His skin still tingled, betraying his own mind's desire to forget, to shun the images and the proof and to go about lying. If he told himself that it had never happened enough, then soon enough he would start to believe it.

This was just—

No. No. No.

What even was this? This wasn't part of their relationship. They were born to hate each other. They were. That was just the way things worked. This deviated so far from that idea, that truth that he didn't know what he was. When had this shift happened, and what had caused it? Fuck. Fuck. This was way past the line, so far into uncharted waters that- fuck. He didn't have it in him to like the louse, and love? No. No. It was out of the question, it was. Shizuo Heiwajima and Izaya Orihara were born to hate, they were. They were too similar repelling each other like magnets, just like he'd learnt back in school, back when he was small, still growing, and still learning. This wasn't supposed to happen. Sex with the flea? No. No. It didn't work that way. This wasn't like Shizuo either, it wasn't. Sex was supposed to be with someone you loved, wasn't it? He wasn't the sort of person to just do it because he was horny, because he was hot. That wasn't him, he wasn't like that, really, he wasn't. He just didn't do it, let alone with someone he was supposed to hate.

Fuck—

He didn't understand what had even happened; he didn't understand the feeling that had overtaken him. Was his lust so powerful that it had overridden his usual urge to kill the informant, or was his lack of rage because of something else? Was it because of Nakura, and the feelings he had for him? Shizuo knew that he was falling for or had fallen for Nakura, that man with the cheeky emails and the saucy ways, he couldn't deny that anymore, he couldn't deny that he had felt something. Shizuo didn't want to hurt Nakura, so what? Did that mean that he couldn't bring himself to hurt Izaya either, knowing they were the same. He loved Nakura, he did. But what did that mean for him and for Izaya? It should mean that he had fallen for him too, and there was no denying that Shizuo felt— what did he feel? Different. So different. It was all so confusing, all so conflicting. Shizuo just wished there was someone out there who could just explain to him what the hell was going on, what the hell he was feeling.

When had love become so damn confusing? He hadn't asked for any of this. All he had wanted was love, just to find some companionship and then this had happened?

Damn. Damn. Damn.

The ring of his mobile phone on the bedside table sent those thoughts flying temporarily from his mind, though with the way his body felt when he stood, leaning over the mattress to reach it, they weren't banished far from him. As he flipped open the screen, he noticed a dozen text messages that had appeared through the day as well as missed calls, all, he guessed, from Tom. Well, who wouldn't call their employee if they didn't show up for work? Shizuo ignored them for now, clicking the little green answer button on his phone.

"Yeah?" He huffed out. The call was probably going to be Tom anyway, so he wouldn't need to read the messages, could just explain there and then that— That what? That he and Izaya had slept together? That his body had been so sated he had slept the day away? Heh. How was he even going to begin to explain something like that when he didn't really understand it himself? There was no way he would tell the truth, no, no, not about something like that. He couldn't. Ever. No. No. Never.

But the voice on the other end of the phone wasn't Tom, like Shizuo had been expecting, though he wasn't really sure if he was pleased about that or not.

"Mr Heiwajima," Shiki's voice was unmistakable, though Shizuo had only heard it once. It was powerful, it was commanding, it was— there was a tone in his voice that sounded familiar, some little lilt to it that Shizuo had heard in someone else's voice. He didn't reply to Shiki then, but just hummed out a little 'hm' in acknowledgement.

"You'll be pleased to know that the garbage men came just this morning," Shiki half chuckled on the other end, and Shizuo remembered the last time he had been at Shiki's place, and what he had said. The man on the other end paused for a moment, his voice a strange mix of seriousness and mirth and something else Shizuo couldn't place. "Why don't you call in and discuss whatever business you came to discuss the other night, hm?"

"Hn," Shizuo scoffed, glancing out the window briefly at the lights and the darkening streets. He needed answers more than ever now, after what had happened. Perhaps then he would be able to understand what was going on, would be able to set it all behind him and make the images on the front of his mind vanish. Perhaps it would be the opposite, and he wouldn't like the answers he was given, perhaps they would make him mad, make him angry. Either way he needed to know, he couldn't just— He didn't like being in the dark about this, about Izaya's fucking game. He didn't like not understanding his own feelings, he didn't like the fact that he was changing, that his whole nature was different because of that louse and he didn't know why. No. No. He needed answers, and Shiki was just the man to give them to him.

"I'll be there in an hour,"