Story: Iris

(The name'Iris' is sorta inspired by Goo Goo Dolls' song.)

Summary: A person who calamity always seemed to follow, but is actually frustrated down deep, forms an unlikely bond with a fairly average, but not-so-average girl or boy. This is a clichéd story you've probably heard before, but life isn't always so nice, and it takes a true friend to accept you unconditionally once rumors have already spread. Minor suicide/self-harm. Izaya had never got too close, but never too far either. It was true that he'd never had anyone in his life he was able to relate to, or that he could actually talk to. It was result of his overall personality. but it had never done him good to sit still for long periods in silence such as this. Izaya is feeling rather annoyed and anxious for once, due to the silence and decides to take a walk. Then Mikado, who had gotten lost incidentally happened to notice him.

Disclaimer: I don't own DRRR!/DuRaRaRa!

Warnings: Angsty!Izaya, Anxiety, mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts, some talk of suicide and mentioned past suicide attempts, attempted in-character bonding of Izaya and Mikado, and Izaya and others, as well as (greatly unintended) ooc behavior, but is that even a warning~? =~=

A/N: I'm actually rather new to the Durarara! series and it's fandom. I just finished watching Durarara! X2 Ten, though I have NOT read any of the light novels, so I truly do apologize in advance if any information in this story is mislead and/or incorrect(do let me know if so).

Without shame, I ended up really liking both Izaya and Shizuo, and also just happened to fall in love with said info-broker by the time it was all said and done. Izaya is personally wonderful to me, despite whst anbody else says. Sooo... For sorta personal reasons, I guess I wanted to write something depressing with him for my first DRRR! fic.

I tried my hardest to write this as in character as possible, but Izaya's personality is so flipping complex and so very haaaarrd to put into words for me in writing! But I promise I really did try, so please don't hate me, and give me suggestions to make it sound better. Even spoilers for past the anime is fine by me! :3

Click, clack, click, I

Izaya continuously and frustratingly kept clicking his pen in utter boredom. His entire office was quiet, and not just quiet. It was absolutely silent, so much so that he almost could feel it beginning to irritate him. Normally, this wouldn't bother him so much, but he found himself just practically lost in staring at his chess board sitting off to his side, for once finding himself unable to bring himself to just push back the anxiety and irritation that was slowly building up in him.

He sighed. It never had done him good to sit still for long periods of times such as these ones, he had to reluctantly and resentfully admit. It was also at moments such as this one that he, just for the simple sake of running off pent-up energy, was itching to do something for the sole purpose of utterly pissing off a certain blond haired brute, and stirring up some noise. He really didn't like how silent it was right now, at all. It was actually far more unsettling to him than he could deal with right now, to be honest.

However, another part of him that just insisted on cursing him with these pathetic 'physiological standpoints' from time to time(he refused to call them 'emotions' and imply that it was because he was simply being human, even though he was not just a normal human. He refused to allow himself to be weak enough to let petty 'feelings' get to him like that), so he knew for his own sake, the most intelligent thing to do to for him was to just take a little walk. Who knew; maybe he would be lucky and some 'drama' not directly or even indirectly instigated by him would occur - he bitterly chuckled at the thought of it. Either way, he knew he needed to get away from this place, right now, before he ripped or broke something that he'd end up regrettably needing later on.

His plans to 'calm down', however, were somehow or another transpiring into the exact opposite. Why? He didn't know, but when he found himself receiving far more stares than passersby, he couldn't help but feel...agitated. Nearly anyone he smiled or smirked at as a simple greeting tonight only seemed to receive him multiple glares or skeptical looks in return. So what? Nobody really liked him, nor trusted him, except when using him for his information.

Big deal.

He'd always known that some people would hate him and even despise him, no matter what he said or did, but, seriously, it wasn't like he was suddenly going to pull out his switchblade and stab or cut some random person for no reason, even though this was resulting in making him want to. Did everyone in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro actually doubt and distrust him so much?

'Oh, yeah. That thing with Shinra and Nakura in middle school', he realized. 'I suppose it would make sense, after all... Man, humans can be so... vexatious sometimes, which is exactly why I...love them so much.'

One way or another, he'd have to make sure to remember make that guy suffer some more soon, wouldn't he? Yeah, but later though.

He wouldn't admit it straight-out, but it was actually rather unnerving, yet depressing and irritating at the same time. He half-heartedly listened when he could overhear children talking about and pointing at him from all directions. Was he really that renowned and despised that even parents were telling their children not to speak to or interact with him for fear of him deciding to go out of his way and using every little information about them against them?

It was a bit ironic. So many adults always seemed to completely trust his words without doubt and were completely oblivious, despite how often it led them into being beaten and tossed around to a pulp by none other than Heiwajima Shizuo, while many children didn't trust him a single bit, probably when they'd first even met him. All because of the rumors.

He was just do his job, wasn't he? He gave one family his trademark smile, resulting in them to soon leave their spot. That's when the thought crossed him. He was actually rather aware that it was his weird fascination and obsession with humans that he had even earned this job and his title in the first place, so he'd decided he might as well just try to make the very best of what he could. Not that that, in itself, had always made him feel particularly better, of course. Oh well...

Suddenly finding himself thinking back on other memories and thoughts flooding his mind, flashes from when he back was in elementary school, and how people seemed to avoid him for nothing more than his slightly quirky standoffish behavior. He'd never got too close, but never too far either, and it was true that he'd never had any real friends nor close family to relate to or that he could actually talk to as a result of his character and overall personality. His 'apathetic' attitude to major crimes always scared people off, so eventually, he just gave up on the idea of ever trying to make to friends, anymore, and instead decided to push them away - he'd decided that human observation would be a lot more enjoyable and comforting in the confides of being by himself, anyway.

Ha! Screw every single one of them- having friends would have been nothing more to him than a burden to him, anyway. Besides, it's not like he could help it; humanity was just waiting for someone like himself to come along and entertain, after all! Humans were so very fun that it made him sick, in fact!

Out of nowhere, he suddenly burst out laughing, a few unshed tears managing to slip from his eyes. He wouldn't ever say that he was actually 'proud' of what he'd been turned into due to his refusal to acknowledge his humaneness, but he didn't even honestly care anymore. Maybe his multiple 'complexes' had consumed and got the best of him. Maybe they had stolen what little bit of sanity he may have once even had, but once again, who even gave a damn?!

One thing he was sure he would never understand about some of those around him, with their philosophy of how you should fight what you didn't want to become. It was actually stupid to him, and part of why he disliked his dear rival 'Shizu-chan' so much. He refused to lose to him on almost anything, and even Simon, himself, had said something about him having some sort of a 'complex' about him, even though they'd been speaking in Russian riddles of sorts back then.

It was a bit ironic and irritating to him at the same time; at times, even Izaya didn't really understand the person he'd become down deep, but that peacemaking Russian always seemed to talk to him as if he could gaze right through his very being like he were literally made of glass or really irked him to no end, to be honest.

The thought of it, alone, really seemed to irritate him more than it even worried him and he didn't like it. Surely, they were not friends(at least from his own side of things), so why did that damned Semyon seem to be as annoyingly fond of him as he did? Well, as long as it didn't interfere with his own work, he supposed it didn't matter, and maybe he could let him live...

Not that he'd particularly want to kill him, of course. He wasn't a being that particularly thrived on killing anyone, for that matter. Though, death, itself, however was unavoidable in the end of it all. So it's not like it really mattered how someone was to die, when, no matter what they did, they were all going to die one way or the other, eventually anyway.

He looked down at his oddly trembling hand, ruminating. That opinion of his on the matter of death was one reason he didn't understand why the majority of the population made such a huge deal about suicide being the 'cowards way out', or something like that- he couldn't remember it right off hand, and he wasn't fully thinking straight, right now. He smirked to himself and to another boy nearby him in that same moment.

When it actually came down to it, all humans and even himself included really were cowardly beings, weren't they? The only reason he really felt so compelled to test people on the suicide thing was to see if they themselves accepted that they were cowards, and he also internally demanded to find out for himself if they did have the 'courage' to actually go through with it, which many didn't.

To be completely honest, the matter of being 'suicidal' wasn't something he, in reality, liked to dwell on. It just easily managed to sicken, but still astonish him, that so many people could constantly throw the word 'suicidal' around, as if it were nearly nothing. To anyone he'd met on that certain roof, or elsewhere, he probably sounded like he thought he knew everything and was just trying to rule everyone else's lives and decisions. It probably frustrated them at the simple thought that he thought he could literally read each and every one of them like a book. Well, the reality was that he could, and it actually actually take lot for him to. He could easily recognize what their true intentions were, from a mile away even(figuratively of course). Truthfully, and unbeknownst to the majority, he didn't have very many biased views as apposed to a lot of people, but, when he did, it was because he had reasonable opinions about it, which were in fact based from his own experience, personally.

It takes one to know one, after all, and that much was very true in this case.

Sure, maybe that would sound far too unrealistic for someone to believe it, but if that wasn't life he didn't know what was. So with that said, they could consider it possible or not, Orihara Izaya, the infamous cunning and shrewd information broker, who did nothing but constantly smirk and obsessively play on people's lives and emotions and feelings, did understand that oh so humane instinct such as being suicidal. Shizuo, that idiot protozoan, would probably get a total kick out of hearing something that 'ridiculous', and show his disbelief that one such as himself could feel anything else beside of trigger-happy in his hurting everyone around him. Let him. Because the truth was, not a single person could have ever possibly have suspected or been aware of the suicidal thoughts that just so happened to flood though his head at least every few days. And they'd probably never know, after all; he was just too good at hiding it, and dodging around things. You could even say it had almost become a talent.

A few times, when he was younger, he had tried to take his own life and end it all once and for all, but he had obviously not succeeded and each time he only seemed to wake up in pain and covered in blood, which always seemed to anger and frustrate him, as to why he couldn't just die, yet. He'd thought that, just maybe, the heavens were simply mocking him. After the third time, however, following the first and probably the near worst fight he'd ever had with Heiwajima Shizuo-kun, he'd really started thinking about everything he had been doing up to then, and then he realized how humane of a death suicide would actually be, after all. He still cringed at the thought of himself succeeding in being normal or 'humane', and so he'd spitefully decided to go against that annoying human-side of his all together from then on.

When it wanted nothing more than to die and be away from life, and people, and pain, and even went as far as to wanting to have 'friends'(sounds contradictory, doesn't it?), he had decided he would go against all that and become his own god since he'd never had one. He, for the simple sake of refusing his humane-side, had purposefully created an identity that would inevitably push people away and not allow himself to have friends, of all things, because relying on someone else only ever seemed to result in making him feel weaker and he didn't need or want people pitying him, either. It would annoy him.

He'd forced himself to live, after all, so he did feel a good amount of satisfaction in his accomplishments. He would bet anything and everything that not a single person knew of his self-harm or could even notice the scars or open cuts littering his body. If they did somehow manage to notice, though, they obviously didn't pay it any mind, or at least didn't say anything about it. Well, he was a fair expert at hiding them, so even the ever-prying doctor, Shinra, probably wouldn't ever been able to catch a glimpse of them, unless he had actually done some kind of physical or something and looked for them. Not that he would let him get close enough to something like that, of course.

He refused to accept that he was, is, or ever could be a good or normal person down deep. He didn't-no, couldn't and wouldn't ever allow it.

Leaning against a random building in more of a quieter area of Shinjuku, and not that far away from Ikebukuro, he glanced down at his phone, once again scanning over the previous chat session he'd been on the last few hours or so.

"It's still empty, huh? I wonder where everyone is... Surely, they wouldn't all get bored that fast, now would they~?", he mused aloud, before sighing, as he slid to the ground, taking out his switchblade with contemplation.

"Oh well, no matter. I was getting kinda bored with that, myself, anyway... It's all fine. No, wonderful, in fact.", he muttered, lying his cell phone down next to him. He suddenly smiled a bit, and shifted his position, momentarily studying with the light tan fur on his jacket sleeve. Tears began to well up in his eyes with no explanation.

"Well now," he choked softly, giving a sad but somehow irritated smile, eyes downcast towards his quivering hand. "how pathetic is this...? Man, I really do make myself sick sometimes. I suddenly can't stop crying... Heh..."

"O-Orihara-san? U-um..." Izaya looked up to see Mikado suddenly standing there with an awkward, but slightly worried, expression.

"Oh, wow," Izaya threw back on his trademark coy grin, instinctively managing to somehow regain his composure. "if it isn't the founder of the dollars, Ryuugamine Mikado, or should I just refer to you as 'Taro Tanaka'~? Now what should I call you..., my human~?"

~End of Chapter 1 Part 1

A/N: What did you think? One of the scenes in Durarara!x2 kinda inspired this idea - the one where Mikado was thinking back to when he'd first met Izaya. He said he thought he was really sketchy at first, but then 'realized' he was actually a really nice guy after all. What do you think of the concept so far? I'm not particularly proud with how it came out, but oh well...

Domou arigatou gozaimasu~!