The Shame in Your Defeat; DRRR!!
I don't believe the first thing I wrote in months that doesn't read like a trainwreck isn't even for KHRfest of Gleefest. Or that it's angst over Izaya, who genuinely is just there for the lulz, but WHATEVER.
Title: The Shame in Your Defeat
Characters: Izaya, Shizuo.
Genre: General, drama.
Summary: A sinner addicted.
THE SHAME IN YOUR DEFEAT
Love, Izaya decides, is the dullest emotion a person can show you. He sees it everywhere; couples swinging hands, families in the park, friends fooling around. Smiles can come from anywhere. They strain and shine and then they flit away momentarily, only to return again in an instant, unfaltering, unchanged.
Anger can’t be fabricated. It’s pure, it’s volatile, and not one inch of it is false. Anger bubbles to life, anger engulfs angel eyes in black fury, anger colours the cheeks and clenches fists; cold, white fingers that a mother couldn’t pry apart to hold close with all her strength. There is no waiting, no anticipation or fear of consequence. Just you, your red cheeks and your readied fists, the switchblade in your shoe and the feel of it clenched in your hand. The power of a King in one slick black handle, the fearlessness of a God.
Izaya likes the cautious dripdrip of blood trickling down his forehead. He smears it and feels it, hot and sticky; tastes it, thick and sickening. (Sometimes, he just grabs a towel with still trembling alabaster hands, and surrenders.)
-
He doesn’t visit on Mothers Day. On Christmas, he is extremely busy revealing the secret of Santa to kids - ‘No elves, just a bunch of slaving kids. Oh - and he doesn’t give them freebies, either.’ - and discussing the likelihood that their parents will get divorced. One year, he tore a whole family apart, watched them scream and bawl for two hours or so through a conveniently placed window then left to order some Russian sushi.
On Valentines, Izaya barely gets in a meal. Love may bore him to his core, but unrequited love is innovative torture, one brutal and appalling, and he’s a sinner addicted. So he picks off the girls he’s led on over e-mails and texts, with his sob stories and his declarations of love, and he favours honesty, favours the bitter truth. He holds his black heart to the sky and screams with a smile look at this, God, they’ve never fooled me.
(Their dainty little heeled shoes scuff the edge. Stones fall to the sea below. Their adoring smiles turn languidly to tears, and it’s beautiful, it’s a whole new rush. Waves crash on the rocks, and Izaya pushes.)
-
Most holidays, Izaya sleepwalks the streets just looking for red-rotted-black stains on the pavement.
-
He celebrates Halloween, however. He’ll buy a fittingly gruesome, terrifying costume, take a knife from the kitchen drawer, and he’ll stay out until early morning, terrorizing kids and adults alike. When he comes home, he’ll toss the dirty knife in the sink, dress into his pyjamas and sleep with his mask clinging hotly to his face, and underneath it, a smile.
-
On his birthday, he brainstorms new ways to irritate Shizuo into a seizure. This year he visits the bar he works in, hair slicked back, a slim-fitting suit on, and amber contact lenses in. He imitates an older man’s voice seamlessly, and replaces his default smirk into an amiable grin. It hurts the unpractised muscle, hurts the black patch sewed in his heart that wants him to stand and proclaim his identity, throw a table and cause some havoc.
He resists, grinning all the while.
Shizuo acts with astounding control at work, keeps his glares to a minimum and claws to himself. He tries smalltalk, even, and Izaya’s acting skill suffered from his inability to raise an eyebrow in bemusement at Shizuo Heiwajima, version 2.0.
Izaya is a moment from executing The Plan - they’re a moment from a mess of splintering tables and good food put to waste, and Shizuo and he in the midst of it all, like a brawl in Roman Coliseums, grand and explosive and nobody gives a damn who wins as long as they see the show. This is a gift. The arrangement of them both, the way Izaya can prod and they can both burst into flames. They light the skies up like fireworks, splashes of red dappling the blue and a crowd roaring praises in the distance, in the stars.
Then Shizuo sighs, he says, he prods: “We doing this, or what?”
And Izaya flares to life.
-
He sleeps on Shizuo’s couch. The blood dries as he’s sleeping, a stain on smooth velvet, crusting once soft cushions over in a thick veil of black. He spits in the milk and pisses all over the toilet floor. He makes an effort to cut himself a little deeper and stain the walls with smears of crimson.
(One drop to the floor and he’s out for the count, and Shizuo is still roaring at him get up kid, we aren’t done yet; you want a proper celebration, don’t you?)
By midnight, Shizuo’s generosity has been rewarded by a tip-off to the police containing a heartbreaking account of a love gone sour with domestic abuse and a young man declaring a fresh start, declaring time I ran from this shithole, goddamn, the there’s blood all over the place and the milk tastes like spit.
Shizuo practically howls at the officers as they drag him away - a whole ten of them, since they needed as many just to slap the cuffs on - and he yells at something in the distance, a speck, a haze, “It’s the last fucking time, you little piece of shit!” just like the time before, and the time before that.
Izaya stays to watch the police car drive off, wipes his bloody smiling mouth, and sets on his way home.
-
(Most days, Izaya just stares into mirror; most nights, he dreams of monsters slipping into bed beside him, precautious and just a little terrified as he edges out from beneath the sheets in the morning.)
Title: The Shame in Your Defeat
Characters: Izaya, Shizuo.
Genre: General, drama.
Summary: A sinner addicted.
THE SHAME IN YOUR DEFEAT
Love, Izaya decides, is the dullest emotion a person can show you. He sees it everywhere; couples swinging hands, families in the park, friends fooling around. Smiles can come from anywhere. They strain and shine and then they flit away momentarily, only to return again in an instant, unfaltering, unchanged.
Anger can’t be fabricated. It’s pure, it’s volatile, and not one inch of it is false. Anger bubbles to life, anger engulfs angel eyes in black fury, anger colours the cheeks and clenches fists; cold, white fingers that a mother couldn’t pry apart to hold close with all her strength. There is no waiting, no anticipation or fear of consequence. Just you, your red cheeks and your readied fists, the switchblade in your shoe and the feel of it clenched in your hand. The power of a King in one slick black handle, the fearlessness of a God.
Izaya likes the cautious dripdrip of blood trickling down his forehead. He smears it and feels it, hot and sticky; tastes it, thick and sickening. (Sometimes, he just grabs a towel with still trembling alabaster hands, and surrenders.)
-
He doesn’t visit on Mothers Day. On Christmas, he is extremely busy revealing the secret of Santa to kids - ‘No elves, just a bunch of slaving kids. Oh - and he doesn’t give them freebies, either.’ - and discussing the likelihood that their parents will get divorced. One year, he tore a whole family apart, watched them scream and bawl for two hours or so through a conveniently placed window then left to order some Russian sushi.
On Valentines, Izaya barely gets in a meal. Love may bore him to his core, but unrequited love is innovative torture, one brutal and appalling, and he’s a sinner addicted. So he picks off the girls he’s led on over e-mails and texts, with his sob stories and his declarations of love, and he favours honesty, favours the bitter truth. He holds his black heart to the sky and screams with a smile look at this, God, they’ve never fooled me.
(Their dainty little heeled shoes scuff the edge. Stones fall to the sea below. Their adoring smiles turn languidly to tears, and it’s beautiful, it’s a whole new rush. Waves crash on the rocks, and Izaya pushes.)
-
Most holidays, Izaya sleepwalks the streets just looking for red-rotted-black stains on the pavement.
-
He celebrates Halloween, however. He’ll buy a fittingly gruesome, terrifying costume, take a knife from the kitchen drawer, and he’ll stay out until early morning, terrorizing kids and adults alike. When he comes home, he’ll toss the dirty knife in the sink, dress into his pyjamas and sleep with his mask clinging hotly to his face, and underneath it, a smile.
-
On his birthday, he brainstorms new ways to irritate Shizuo into a seizure. This year he visits the bar he works in, hair slicked back, a slim-fitting suit on, and amber contact lenses in. He imitates an older man’s voice seamlessly, and replaces his default smirk into an amiable grin. It hurts the unpractised muscle, hurts the black patch sewed in his heart that wants him to stand and proclaim his identity, throw a table and cause some havoc.
He resists, grinning all the while.
Shizuo acts with astounding control at work, keeps his glares to a minimum and claws to himself. He tries smalltalk, even, and Izaya’s acting skill suffered from his inability to raise an eyebrow in bemusement at Shizuo Heiwajima, version 2.0.
Izaya is a moment from executing The Plan - they’re a moment from a mess of splintering tables and good food put to waste, and Shizuo and he in the midst of it all, like a brawl in Roman Coliseums, grand and explosive and nobody gives a damn who wins as long as they see the show. This is a gift. The arrangement of them both, the way Izaya can prod and they can both burst into flames. They light the skies up like fireworks, splashes of red dappling the blue and a crowd roaring praises in the distance, in the stars.
Then Shizuo sighs, he says, he prods: “We doing this, or what?”
And Izaya flares to life.
-
He sleeps on Shizuo’s couch. The blood dries as he’s sleeping, a stain on smooth velvet, crusting once soft cushions over in a thick veil of black. He spits in the milk and pisses all over the toilet floor. He makes an effort to cut himself a little deeper and stain the walls with smears of crimson.
(One drop to the floor and he’s out for the count, and Shizuo is still roaring at him get up kid, we aren’t done yet; you want a proper celebration, don’t you?)
By midnight, Shizuo’s generosity has been rewarded by a tip-off to the police containing a heartbreaking account of a love gone sour with domestic abuse and a young man declaring a fresh start, declaring time I ran from this shithole, goddamn, the there’s blood all over the place and the milk tastes like spit.
Shizuo practically howls at the officers as they drag him away - a whole ten of them, since they needed as many just to slap the cuffs on - and he yells at something in the distance, a speck, a haze, “It’s the last fucking time, you little piece of shit!” just like the time before, and the time before that.
Izaya stays to watch the police car drive off, wipes his bloody smiling mouth, and sets on his way home.
-
(Most days, Izaya just stares into mirror; most nights, he dreams of monsters slipping into bed beside him, precautious and just a little terrified as he edges out from beneath the sheets in the morning.)