Trust
Title: Trust
Summary: -or, a moment of unbelievable stupidity brought to you by the usually quite intelligent Orihara Izaya.
Trust
-or, a moment of unbelievable stupidity
brought to you by the usually quite intelligent
Orihara Izaya.
Love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting that they won't.
Izaya comes across this quote one day while scrolling about online in search of people to troll, and pauses for the rest of the afternoon to ponder it. Though it's not credited to anyone famous, Izaya doesn't pick favorites, and the fact that there's no name attached to this quote doesn't really matter. It could have originated in the mind of Aristotle or the grade-schooler who lives next door for all Izaya cares, the important thing here is that it's made Izaya stop and think.
He loves humans. He really, truly does. But… he's never given them any sort of 'power to destroy him'. The closest he ever comes is with Shizuo, and even then it's only 'pretending to create the chance'. Plus Shizuo's not human and Izaya hates him, so fwit, out the window with that idea.
And honestly, the reason Izaya doesn't trust his dear humans with the power to destroy him is because he knows that they will actually use it. Much as he loves humanity, as a whole it doesn't seem to share his affection. Some stray humans might, here and there, but Izaya tends to not like those people all that much and most of them are far too stupid to know what to do with something like his trust. In fact, Izaya can only think of a few candidates for his trust, a few people close enough to him that they might be worth handing over some power over his life. Shinra, Namie, maybe his sisters… and then the only other 'human' Izaya's somewhat close to is Shizuo, and. Well.
Namie is such a viper that, if given the opportunity, she would certainly strike back at Izaya for all he's taken from her, and she would definitely destroy him if she possibly could. Izaya's sisters wouldn't destroy him, though.
Not on purpose.
Unless doing so would get them a chance with Hanejima Yuuhei.
…They're out of the running.
Shinra, now that guy might not destroy Izaya. In fact, if he knew that Izaya was the one who had Celty's head, he might even be thankful. But on the other hand, Shinra would just as easily throw Izaya to the dogs if it meant saving Celty, and Izaya's not willing to trust anyone so fickle with anything truly important.
This leaves only Shizuo. Setting aside the fact that Izaya completely and utterly hates the beast, it's still obvious that Shizuo would destroy him. The fool shouts so every other day, after all.
So - sad as it may seem, Izaya's going to have to just prove this claim wrong, and go ahead and love everyone (but Shizuo) without trusting a single one of them.
He gets back to work, but only after ten minutes spent mocking Namie about her unpure love for Seiji. Then he asks her to make him tea and waits to see exactly how she's going to attempt to poison him today.
Just because it's fun.
---
However, three days later, Izaya is innocently walking down the street (while on the phone with a man whose life he recently ruined, chatting about yakuza) when a stop sign whizzes past his head. The chase is on.
It's a perfectly ordinary sort of situation. Izaya offers his last few words of comfort to a man about to die ("Well, at least you were amusing to me for thirty-six hours, Sato-san. That should be them at your door now.") without a hitch, hangs up, and switches to parkour mode.
He leads Shizuo through familiar streets, relishing in the looks on the faces he passes. If only Shizu-chan knew how much more he made Izaya fall in love with humans every time they indulged in this little game of fatal tag, he would be sickened. Perhaps Izaya should let him know next time.
Anyway, they run. They crash through the streets, they flip and leap and dodge through the alleys. The trail of detritus behind them is astonishing, even more than usual, but that's only because Izaya's going in a rough circle around Ikebukuro's outer perimeter, at times only three feet from Shizuo's goal of having him out of the district.
This only enrages Shizuo more, which is rather the point.
It's sort of like stress-release, Izaya thinks as he sucks in his belly to avoid being skewered by a one-way only sign. Running from Shizuo would ease the tension building up in his back, if he felt afflicted by stress at all, which he doesn't, and ignoring the fact that running from Shizuo frequently ends up causing Izaya to buy a massage. Still, it's a bit of a creature comfort at this point. He's not addicted to it or anything, but if he hasn't dashed madly away from Shizuo at least once in the past couple weeks, Izaya starts to feel a bit depressed. Or, not depressed exactly, but maybe lonely.
No, not even that. It's more equivalent to the feeling of just missing watching the latest episode of your favorite drama. Because, well, this is quite dramatic, isn't it?
Why yes, says the yield sign pressing into Izaya's gut, yes this is.
"What's with all the street signs today, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks, flicking his trusty blade out, but keeping it hidden in his sleeve for now. Sure, Shizuo's got him backed up into a dead-end alley barely three feet across, but there's a fire escape just a few feet up. This is not yet a dire situation. "Did you decide you hate cars and want them all to crash?"
Shizuo merely grins like some sort of psychopath, towering over his defenseless-seeming victim. It's very reminiscent of how Izaya spent last Tuesday.
"Izaya-kun," Shizuo snarls, jabbing forward. Izaya steps back in time, so the sharp metal tip of the sign does nothing more than brush the front of his shirt. Though, this move does leave him pressed flat against the wall. Oh well. "You're the only thing I hate here!"
Shizuo jabs the sign forward again. Izaya calmly ducks. "'Thing?'" he asks mildly. "That's rather harsh, Shizu-chan. At least I acknowledge you as a sentient animal. Though, even a sea slug is sentient too, of course~."
"Shut up, YOU FLEA," Shizuo roars, swinging the sign wildly in the cramped space of the alley. Izaya leaps up on top of it and trots down the length of the pole to crouch on Shizuo's shoulders for a brief moment.
He flicks out with the blade: blood slips down Shizuo's cheek in a single, very thin line, reminiscent of a cat scratch. From an attack that would have split the face of any other man in two - how irritating.
Well - that's is enough for today, most likely. The reminder of Shizuo's inhuman status has soured Izaya's mood a bit, and he's ready to go home. All that's left is to ditch his bloodhound.
"I am going to love crushing your skull in my hands," Shizuo bellows next, a pretty lame threat - but it gives Izaya a… hm, an impulse.
That's really the only word to describe what he does next. It's not like he's got any deep reasoning for it, nor any confirmation whether or not he'll make it out alive. But for all his clever plots, a good part of Izaya's genius lies in his impulsive actions and his ability to make them work for him. If he were only a master manipulator, he wouldn't have been out here being chased by Shizuo in the first place.
Still, this impulse is among the stupider ones Izaya has ever had, and he regrets it instantly. If he'd thought it through at all, he would have decided against the action - but with his nonexistent impulse control, Izaya just got the urge and acted, and as a result -
He slips.
Oh, it might look like an accident, to anyone else; but Izaya has had years of life-and-death practice, and he is in perfect control of his body. If he says he did something on purpose, it's because he did, and this is no accidental slip.
He falls forward, tumbles over Shizuo's head and twists under the pole still brandished in the air; lands with his elbows scraping against the concrete, completely vulnerable to attack from above.
And the attack comes, of course. Shizuo swings the pole down at an angle, scraping it against the narrow walls and sending up a spray of sparks. Izaya hardly has time to roll back to a sitting position, much less time to get out of the way. He cannot escape, the jagged metal is at a collision course with his throat, Izaya feels something like absolute terror for the first time in a long time, and Shizuo sighs and puts his sunglasses back on.
Wait.
What?
Shizuo sighs again, very harshly, and glares down at Izaya with a clear intent to stomp on his skull until it cracks and his brains spill out all over the alley. Then he crouches down, very close to Izaya's face, which is not so much composed as utterly dumbfounded.
"Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks, completely perplexed.
He's instantly overridden. "Shut up. Shut up. I don't want to hear your stupid voice. I want to kill you. I really want to. Argh, why won't you just die already?" Shizuo deftly lights a cigarette, blowing the smoke straight up into the darkening sky. It's dusk.
"Um. You could probably take care of that right now," Izaya remarks, because intentionally or not, the yield sign stopping swinging at a point where it's lodged into the walls on either side of the alley, pressing him against the back wall like some odd sort of seatbelt. For the moment, he can't escape.
Shizuo nods, once, emphatically. He waves the cigarette in an agitated sort of way. "Why the hell can't you just leave me alone? Huh? I hate violence, you think I like wanting to kill you all the time? Stop making me want to kill you. It's really annoying. It makes me want to kill you even more. Shit."
An irritated intake of smoke; Shizuo holds his breath for a long time, as though waiting for an answer. Izaya doesn't immediately give him one because, in all honesty, he can't think of what to say.
But he's starting to feel very warm, starting to feel very much like smiling. "You don't want to kill me, Shizu-chan?"
Ah, Shizuo could hear the smile in his voice. Izaya can tell by the way he clenches his jaw and breathes out smoke in thin streams from his nostrils. "I do. I want to squeeze your neck until your eyes pop out. I want to throw you off a building. I want to punch you so hard every single one of your ribs breaks in sixteen places. I want to kill you. But I don't want to. I don't want to want to kill you. You're just a maggot, I shouldn't care but - I do."
Shizuo sighs, takes another drag. "I don't want to kill you, Izaya. Stop making me try."
Izaya doesn't move, but this little speech of Shizuo's really makes him want to laugh. What prompted this? It's impossible to tell, just another one of the many mysteries of Heiwajima Shizuo, another event that was impossible to predict, impossible to plan for, impossible to expect.
Ah, but didn't Izaya know somehow that this was coming? Didn't he know, in some sort of subconscious capacity, that Shizuo was not going to kill him? Wasn't that why he let himself slip?
Or did he not know but trust that his demise was not imminent?
Ha!
Izaya's thoughts are getting out of hand, he feels a little too warm and a little too amused for the occasion. He says, "Sure thing, Shizu-chan. Let's just kiss and make up, shall we~?"
He reaches out and yanks Shizuo forward by the bowtie. Their lips meet messily, Izaya's mouth filling up with transferred smoke. What a nasty taste. What a terrible taste. Oh, so this is how it is. This is so funny.
Izaya's giggling, smoke wisping out of his lips and he wants to hold it in, wants to savor it, that disgusting flavor of Shizuo, ah, suddenly lots of things make sense.
Shizuo's roaring, yanking back and yanking the yield sign away too, for use as a weapon but that sets Izaya free. He leaps, and this time he doesn't slip, he's up the fire escape and out of there, down the other side of the building and out of Ikebukuro, running flat out with Shizuo's screams behind him: "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU FLEA!"
Izaya keeps running, even when it's blatantly clear that whatever chase effort Shizuo put forth has long since ceased. He eventually skids to a stop outside a park, where he sinks down on a swing set and starts pumping his legs away.
Ah, ah, this is ridiculous. This is stupid. This is just Izaya getting all caught up in some idiot online's bullshit opinion of what love is made of, getting all giddy and foolish for absolutely no legitimate reason. This is… an urge to go buy a pack of cigarettes all of a sudden, for fuck's sake, and Izaya jerks the swing to a halt and stomps off towards home.
---
He sits at his laptop, typing away, definition after definition.
Love is not a man and a monster. Love is not inciting murder. Love is not wanting to taste something so disgusting it makes you feel like hurling. Love is not a sudden fondness for yield signs. Love is not enemies reconciling. Love is not with Shizu-chan at all, no way in hell, that's impossible and idiotic besides.
Love is not wanting to kill me, does he
Izaya lifts his hands off the keyboard, disgusted with himself, and closes the document without saving. Love is for humans only. Which Shizuo is not.
That thought's a good one, and Izaya clings to it. How could he ever love such a brute? It's inconceivable. Firstly because Shizuo's a monster, but also because Izaya's love is a pure and godly one, it's got no need to focus on any one human. He has no need for things like warmth spreading under his skin, muscles tightening, smooth cloth in his grip, smoke on his tongue, or unexpectedly soft lips. There's no value in kissing Shizuo - well, this time was justifiable, a method of escape, but it's unnecessary in the future and he won't do it.
He also will stop paying attention to online quotes, especially when they have no author Izaya can track down and punish for messing with his head.
He also will get back to work, because he's wasted enough time today already, hasn't he? Yes, yes.
Ah, but it's difficult to concentrate, so difficult with that one lone thought twisting around in his head like smoke, Shizuo had the chance, but he didn't destroy me at all, did he; not even close.
Summary: -or, a moment of unbelievable stupidity brought to you by the usually quite intelligent Orihara Izaya.
Trust
-or, a moment of unbelievable stupidity
brought to you by the usually quite intelligent
Orihara Izaya.
Love is giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting that they won't.
Izaya comes across this quote one day while scrolling about online in search of people to troll, and pauses for the rest of the afternoon to ponder it. Though it's not credited to anyone famous, Izaya doesn't pick favorites, and the fact that there's no name attached to this quote doesn't really matter. It could have originated in the mind of Aristotle or the grade-schooler who lives next door for all Izaya cares, the important thing here is that it's made Izaya stop and think.
He loves humans. He really, truly does. But… he's never given them any sort of 'power to destroy him'. The closest he ever comes is with Shizuo, and even then it's only 'pretending to create the chance'. Plus Shizuo's not human and Izaya hates him, so fwit, out the window with that idea.
And honestly, the reason Izaya doesn't trust his dear humans with the power to destroy him is because he knows that they will actually use it. Much as he loves humanity, as a whole it doesn't seem to share his affection. Some stray humans might, here and there, but Izaya tends to not like those people all that much and most of them are far too stupid to know what to do with something like his trust. In fact, Izaya can only think of a few candidates for his trust, a few people close enough to him that they might be worth handing over some power over his life. Shinra, Namie, maybe his sisters… and then the only other 'human' Izaya's somewhat close to is Shizuo, and. Well.
Namie is such a viper that, if given the opportunity, she would certainly strike back at Izaya for all he's taken from her, and she would definitely destroy him if she possibly could. Izaya's sisters wouldn't destroy him, though.
Not on purpose.
Unless doing so would get them a chance with Hanejima Yuuhei.
…They're out of the running.
Shinra, now that guy might not destroy Izaya. In fact, if he knew that Izaya was the one who had Celty's head, he might even be thankful. But on the other hand, Shinra would just as easily throw Izaya to the dogs if it meant saving Celty, and Izaya's not willing to trust anyone so fickle with anything truly important.
This leaves only Shizuo. Setting aside the fact that Izaya completely and utterly hates the beast, it's still obvious that Shizuo would destroy him. The fool shouts so every other day, after all.
So - sad as it may seem, Izaya's going to have to just prove this claim wrong, and go ahead and love everyone (but Shizuo) without trusting a single one of them.
He gets back to work, but only after ten minutes spent mocking Namie about her unpure love for Seiji. Then he asks her to make him tea and waits to see exactly how she's going to attempt to poison him today.
Just because it's fun.
---
However, three days later, Izaya is innocently walking down the street (while on the phone with a man whose life he recently ruined, chatting about yakuza) when a stop sign whizzes past his head. The chase is on.
It's a perfectly ordinary sort of situation. Izaya offers his last few words of comfort to a man about to die ("Well, at least you were amusing to me for thirty-six hours, Sato-san. That should be them at your door now.") without a hitch, hangs up, and switches to parkour mode.
He leads Shizuo through familiar streets, relishing in the looks on the faces he passes. If only Shizu-chan knew how much more he made Izaya fall in love with humans every time they indulged in this little game of fatal tag, he would be sickened. Perhaps Izaya should let him know next time.
Anyway, they run. They crash through the streets, they flip and leap and dodge through the alleys. The trail of detritus behind them is astonishing, even more than usual, but that's only because Izaya's going in a rough circle around Ikebukuro's outer perimeter, at times only three feet from Shizuo's goal of having him out of the district.
This only enrages Shizuo more, which is rather the point.
It's sort of like stress-release, Izaya thinks as he sucks in his belly to avoid being skewered by a one-way only sign. Running from Shizuo would ease the tension building up in his back, if he felt afflicted by stress at all, which he doesn't, and ignoring the fact that running from Shizuo frequently ends up causing Izaya to buy a massage. Still, it's a bit of a creature comfort at this point. He's not addicted to it or anything, but if he hasn't dashed madly away from Shizuo at least once in the past couple weeks, Izaya starts to feel a bit depressed. Or, not depressed exactly, but maybe lonely.
No, not even that. It's more equivalent to the feeling of just missing watching the latest episode of your favorite drama. Because, well, this is quite dramatic, isn't it?
Why yes, says the yield sign pressing into Izaya's gut, yes this is.
"What's with all the street signs today, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks, flicking his trusty blade out, but keeping it hidden in his sleeve for now. Sure, Shizuo's got him backed up into a dead-end alley barely three feet across, but there's a fire escape just a few feet up. This is not yet a dire situation. "Did you decide you hate cars and want them all to crash?"
Shizuo merely grins like some sort of psychopath, towering over his defenseless-seeming victim. It's very reminiscent of how Izaya spent last Tuesday.
"Izaya-kun," Shizuo snarls, jabbing forward. Izaya steps back in time, so the sharp metal tip of the sign does nothing more than brush the front of his shirt. Though, this move does leave him pressed flat against the wall. Oh well. "You're the only thing I hate here!"
Shizuo jabs the sign forward again. Izaya calmly ducks. "'Thing?'" he asks mildly. "That's rather harsh, Shizu-chan. At least I acknowledge you as a sentient animal. Though, even a sea slug is sentient too, of course~."
"Shut up, YOU FLEA," Shizuo roars, swinging the sign wildly in the cramped space of the alley. Izaya leaps up on top of it and trots down the length of the pole to crouch on Shizuo's shoulders for a brief moment.
He flicks out with the blade: blood slips down Shizuo's cheek in a single, very thin line, reminiscent of a cat scratch. From an attack that would have split the face of any other man in two - how irritating.
Well - that's is enough for today, most likely. The reminder of Shizuo's inhuman status has soured Izaya's mood a bit, and he's ready to go home. All that's left is to ditch his bloodhound.
"I am going to love crushing your skull in my hands," Shizuo bellows next, a pretty lame threat - but it gives Izaya a… hm, an impulse.
That's really the only word to describe what he does next. It's not like he's got any deep reasoning for it, nor any confirmation whether or not he'll make it out alive. But for all his clever plots, a good part of Izaya's genius lies in his impulsive actions and his ability to make them work for him. If he were only a master manipulator, he wouldn't have been out here being chased by Shizuo in the first place.
Still, this impulse is among the stupider ones Izaya has ever had, and he regrets it instantly. If he'd thought it through at all, he would have decided against the action - but with his nonexistent impulse control, Izaya just got the urge and acted, and as a result -
He slips.
Oh, it might look like an accident, to anyone else; but Izaya has had years of life-and-death practice, and he is in perfect control of his body. If he says he did something on purpose, it's because he did, and this is no accidental slip.
He falls forward, tumbles over Shizuo's head and twists under the pole still brandished in the air; lands with his elbows scraping against the concrete, completely vulnerable to attack from above.
And the attack comes, of course. Shizuo swings the pole down at an angle, scraping it against the narrow walls and sending up a spray of sparks. Izaya hardly has time to roll back to a sitting position, much less time to get out of the way. He cannot escape, the jagged metal is at a collision course with his throat, Izaya feels something like absolute terror for the first time in a long time, and Shizuo sighs and puts his sunglasses back on.
Wait.
What?
Shizuo sighs again, very harshly, and glares down at Izaya with a clear intent to stomp on his skull until it cracks and his brains spill out all over the alley. Then he crouches down, very close to Izaya's face, which is not so much composed as utterly dumbfounded.
"Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks, completely perplexed.
He's instantly overridden. "Shut up. Shut up. I don't want to hear your stupid voice. I want to kill you. I really want to. Argh, why won't you just die already?" Shizuo deftly lights a cigarette, blowing the smoke straight up into the darkening sky. It's dusk.
"Um. You could probably take care of that right now," Izaya remarks, because intentionally or not, the yield sign stopping swinging at a point where it's lodged into the walls on either side of the alley, pressing him against the back wall like some odd sort of seatbelt. For the moment, he can't escape.
Shizuo nods, once, emphatically. He waves the cigarette in an agitated sort of way. "Why the hell can't you just leave me alone? Huh? I hate violence, you think I like wanting to kill you all the time? Stop making me want to kill you. It's really annoying. It makes me want to kill you even more. Shit."
An irritated intake of smoke; Shizuo holds his breath for a long time, as though waiting for an answer. Izaya doesn't immediately give him one because, in all honesty, he can't think of what to say.
But he's starting to feel very warm, starting to feel very much like smiling. "You don't want to kill me, Shizu-chan?"
Ah, Shizuo could hear the smile in his voice. Izaya can tell by the way he clenches his jaw and breathes out smoke in thin streams from his nostrils. "I do. I want to squeeze your neck until your eyes pop out. I want to throw you off a building. I want to punch you so hard every single one of your ribs breaks in sixteen places. I want to kill you. But I don't want to. I don't want to want to kill you. You're just a maggot, I shouldn't care but - I do."
Shizuo sighs, takes another drag. "I don't want to kill you, Izaya. Stop making me try."
Izaya doesn't move, but this little speech of Shizuo's really makes him want to laugh. What prompted this? It's impossible to tell, just another one of the many mysteries of Heiwajima Shizuo, another event that was impossible to predict, impossible to plan for, impossible to expect.
Ah, but didn't Izaya know somehow that this was coming? Didn't he know, in some sort of subconscious capacity, that Shizuo was not going to kill him? Wasn't that why he let himself slip?
Or did he not know but trust that his demise was not imminent?
Ha!
Izaya's thoughts are getting out of hand, he feels a little too warm and a little too amused for the occasion. He says, "Sure thing, Shizu-chan. Let's just kiss and make up, shall we~?"
He reaches out and yanks Shizuo forward by the bowtie. Their lips meet messily, Izaya's mouth filling up with transferred smoke. What a nasty taste. What a terrible taste. Oh, so this is how it is. This is so funny.
Izaya's giggling, smoke wisping out of his lips and he wants to hold it in, wants to savor it, that disgusting flavor of Shizuo, ah, suddenly lots of things make sense.
Shizuo's roaring, yanking back and yanking the yield sign away too, for use as a weapon but that sets Izaya free. He leaps, and this time he doesn't slip, he's up the fire escape and out of there, down the other side of the building and out of Ikebukuro, running flat out with Shizuo's screams behind him: "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU FLEA!"
Izaya keeps running, even when it's blatantly clear that whatever chase effort Shizuo put forth has long since ceased. He eventually skids to a stop outside a park, where he sinks down on a swing set and starts pumping his legs away.
Ah, ah, this is ridiculous. This is stupid. This is just Izaya getting all caught up in some idiot online's bullshit opinion of what love is made of, getting all giddy and foolish for absolutely no legitimate reason. This is… an urge to go buy a pack of cigarettes all of a sudden, for fuck's sake, and Izaya jerks the swing to a halt and stomps off towards home.
---
He sits at his laptop, typing away, definition after definition.
Love is not a man and a monster. Love is not inciting murder. Love is not wanting to taste something so disgusting it makes you feel like hurling. Love is not a sudden fondness for yield signs. Love is not enemies reconciling. Love is not with Shizu-chan at all, no way in hell, that's impossible and idiotic besides.
Love is not wanting to kill me, does he
Izaya lifts his hands off the keyboard, disgusted with himself, and closes the document without saving. Love is for humans only. Which Shizuo is not.
That thought's a good one, and Izaya clings to it. How could he ever love such a brute? It's inconceivable. Firstly because Shizuo's a monster, but also because Izaya's love is a pure and godly one, it's got no need to focus on any one human. He has no need for things like warmth spreading under his skin, muscles tightening, smooth cloth in his grip, smoke on his tongue, or unexpectedly soft lips. There's no value in kissing Shizuo - well, this time was justifiable, a method of escape, but it's unnecessary in the future and he won't do it.
He also will stop paying attention to online quotes, especially when they have no author Izaya can track down and punish for messing with his head.
He also will get back to work, because he's wasted enough time today already, hasn't he? Yes, yes.
Ah, but it's difficult to concentrate, so difficult with that one lone thought twisting around in his head like smoke, Shizuo had the chance, but he didn't destroy me at all, did he; not even close.