Author's Note: I am so sorry for not updating sooner! I caught this horrible cold/virus thing and spent most of the last few days either sleeping or sitting in bed watching cheesy movies and sneezing my head off feeling sorry for myself, welp. So this is a bit idfuisdfdfe for me, but I'm still getting back on my feet so please forgive me~~
Well, hopefully updates will now go back to being every day/every other day once again depending on how much creativity I have in a day, haha. There is also likely to be a little Valentine's Day fic posted on Tuesday, just a bit of plotless fluff like my Christmas one-shot. So have a look out for that too.
Anyway, this update is way overdue, so I'll stop babbling on and post it already. I hope it's sort of worth the wait even if nothing much really happens. Don't forget those reviews lovelies~ /Kiwi out/
Shizuo Heiwajima had only felt scared a number of times in his life. When he had been cursed with strength such as he had, there had been no real need for him to be scared of anything. Of course that didn't mean that he had never experienced the emotion or that he had never felt his insides gripped with a cold spell that seemed to freeze his very being. He'd felt it when he was little, scared that is, when he'd first discovered his curse. How could a young boy discover something like that and not be afraid after all? He'd not understood what was going on, and he'd felt alone, because who else can say they can lift an entire fridge above their head that young? He'd felt scared when he'd gotten into middle school and those older kids had started picking fights because of what they'd heard. He'd felt scared when he entered high school, and realised after one awkward encounter with a girl in his class that maybe he just wasn't attracted to that gender. Shizuo had never really stopped being scared about that, though he'd learnt to brush all of that fear under that wall of strength, push it to the back corner of his mind and forget what fear even felt like.
He felt scared now though, terrified, or so the erratic patter of his heart in his ears told him; seeing Tom stood on the doorstep had awoken that emotion in him again, stirring it up in a storm of shocked faces and bare skin. It didn't take him long to decide that he didn't like the feeling, or the vulnerable one that seemed to come over him from the look on his employer's face and the awkward silence that had seemed to creep over them all.
Tom was usually the sort of guy who didn't draw conclusions until he'd heard the whole story, and maybe that was why he was so good at his job; but Shizuo knew too that there was hardly any other way to take this picture. Izaya stood in the doorway in Shizuo's shirt and the blonde himself dressed only in his underwear in the middle of the morning, what other way could that be taken? No one would buy the excuse they'd been fighting given the evidence, not even someone half as dense as Tom was. Suddenly all of his conversations from the past few weeks with Tom flitted to the front of the blonde's mind. Would Tom connect that Izaya and the man Shizuo had been speaking of before?
To his credit, Tom held his ground and managed to somehow maintain the aloof stance that he always had, his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers. And yet his expression was unnervingly blank, like a page that an artist has yet to fill, a novel that an author has yet to write. Shizuo knew of course that his friend, his employer, wasn't the kind of man who would be cruel about what he had stumbled upon, because really, he was sure the man didn't even know how to be cruel. That blank expression scared Shizuo the most, because this whole situation was foreign, and he wasn't sure if Tom would act just as strangely or remain the same man who had become his close friend.
"Looks like you forgot about the plans for today," the chocolate headed man piped up, effectively shattering the stillness that had swept over the three of them. His expression was still bare, void of any judgement, either good or not. His eyes had lingered on Shizuo's face though, and though Shizuo had averted his eyes somewhere else to avoid the confrontation, he could feel the heat of that gaze and practically hear the unspoken question in his friend's mind. He knew this was not one of those things that Tom would let slide like he had done before.
Shizuo didn't reply to his employer's statement. The answer was obvious.
"Well, we can always check out that place some other time, I guess you made other plans," Tom continued, letting out a laugh that to Shizuo sounded just a little forced. He couldn't blame the man, not when he had expected to find Shizuo and stumbled across this instead. The loan shark pushed himself into action then, one hand removing itself from his pocket to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck, making as if to head off and down the corridor.
Izaya himself remained quiet and Shizuo couldn't see the look on his face, but was thankful for the fact that he seemed to have realised now was not the time for wiseass remarks; though maybe that would have done something to kill the mood that was dragging them all over into the dark.
"Gimme ten minutes," the blonde huffed out in a low voice when Tom started to turn. He still couldn't bring himself to look at his boss, but spotted the half nod in his direction before he promptly shut the door with a chorus of squeaking hinges.
Suddenly the raven seemed to be stood too damn close for comfort, and Shizuo found himself pushing away from the door and back up the little hallway into his living room. He couldn't stop the string of curses that started to tumble from his mouth, a rude little mix of 'damn it' and 'fuck' that simply just blurred together, over and over. His skin started to tingle, that familiar feeling of anger itching under his skin, bubbling in his blood and pump, pump, pumping around his body. He didn't like this feeling, this odd little lovechild of fear and rage. It was destructive, working its way through his body and working that anger up, burning away at a temper that was already short as it was. That irritation, pure rage, red hot, worked its way up, hotter and hotter. He'd almost forgotten how it felt to get this angry, almost forgotten the way his vision seemed to swim with red, his head blurring from all other thoughts. When the louse finally spoke up, calling his name in that sing-song voice from where he leant against the wall by the hallway, Shizuo couldn't stop himself from returning to the way he normally dealt with his anger; destroying something.
The idiotic pot plant in the corner was the first to go, promptly being tossed at the floor just before Izaya's feet. The raven glanced down at it when it landed, the vase smashing against the floor and sending soil scattering across the place. There was a look on his face that Shizuo didn't understand nor really care to in his fit of anger. Why would he even care for a stupid potted plant anyway?
"I hope you're not expecting me to replace that one too," Izaya half laughed from his place across the room, still stood by the carnage of pottery and plant. His tone was amused, and yet his body language said something entirely different. His arms were crossed and his face was void of all of the mirth in his voice. Shizuo couldn't read his expression or the guarded shield in his eyes and he didn't reply either. All he could bring himself to do was try and calm down that fire burning under his skin and return the raven's stare; something easier said than done when Izaya was still swathed in the crisp fabric of his work shirt and nothing else.
Silence fell over the two of them, and Shizuo questioned just what had happened that had made this whole thing so fucked up, so hard to understand. If this had happened a few days earlier, maybe a week or two, the blonde would have tossed Izaya from his apartment and promptly informed Tom that it was just to release some stress. That was what guys did right, had sex to relieve some tension or whatnot? Now though, heh, now Shizuo was panicking because he didn't know what was meant to happen or what came next. He'd still not figured out where it, this thing with the louse, was going, only that he'd not wanted anyone else to know other than the two of them what was going on between them. Then this had happened, and now Tom knew, and suddenly this relationship, if that was what it was called, wasn't quite so secret. That scared Shizuo, left him falling without a parachute, plummeting down into that abyss with a speed that made him feel sick and light-headed.
"Go get fucking dressed," he bit out with a grumble.
The raven smirked, but didn't say anything after that, even when Shizuo showed no signs of speaking again either. He stood against the wall for a few moments longer, just staring back at Shizuo with a quiet calm. The blonde guessed the raven was analysing him, trying to pick through what he thought he knew about Shizuo and act all smartass by guessing what he was thinking. Shizuo wanted to laugh; maybe if Izaya figured out what Shizuo was thinking, he'd be kind enough to tell the blonde, because Shizuo Heiwajima sure as hell didn't know what was going on anymore.
And that was the scariest thing of all.