Once again, unable to come up with anything else to write for my daily writing project, I have resorted to fanfiction. Perhaps someone here will like it and give it a good home on their favorite's list.

Breakdown

Shizuo was mad. It wasn't a rare state for him, to be honest, but for once, it wasn't his greatest enemy, Izaya Orihara, who was responsible. Actually, Izaya was kind of responsible...no, Izaya was completely responsible!

Desperately trying to calm down so his thoughts weren't so jumbled, Shizuo lit up a cigarette and took a deep breath. When the cigarette was half-gone, he allowed himself to think about this again. Shizuo figured that he might as well go back to the beginning.

Three days ago, he had found a group of men waiting outside of his apartment. They were quite obviously criminals of some sort, which meant that Shizuo wanted nothing to do with them. But that all changed when they made him an unexpected offer.

If he could bring them Izaya Orihara, they would give him a great deal of money.

Instantly, Shizuo was angry. He had growled at them to get out of his sight, offended that they thought he could be manipulated by money and that they seemed to think that capturing Izaya was some easy task. When one of the men had offered him a business card with a phone number, he had ripped it in half.

But later that day, Shizuo found himself going back to recover the pieces of that card. While it was true that he didn't want anything to do with the men, he had the feeling that they could make Izaya suffer in ways he himself could not.

Because, as much as Shizuo hated to admit it, nothing he had done so far had been enough. He wanted revenge for all of the tricks and schemes, all of the smirks that burned Shizuo like acid, all of the times Izaya had gone out of his way to make Shizuo's life hell.

That alone was enough to make Shizuo think about it.

And now, Shizuo was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do, hence the reason for his anger. The cigarette had calmed him enough that he was able to decide that he wouldn't mind handing Izaya over to those men, but on one condition: They were not to kill Izaya.

It was a ridiculous condition, Shizuo knew, but the very thought of someone else getting to actually end the flea's life made his blood boil. He took another drag on the cigarette and reached into his pocket and took out the pieces of the business card. If they agreed to his condition, then he would cooperate. If not...

Shizuo dialed the number into his mobile phone. It rang a few times before someone on the other end picked up.

"Hello, Mr. Heiwajima." The man's voice was smooth and oily. "Have you changed your mind?"

"I'll bring you that flea," Shizuo growled, "but only if you don't kill him."

The man paused and there was some muted discussion in the background. "We accept your terms," he said at last. "When you capture him, bring him to this address–"

The man told him the street and house number, which Shizuo committed to memory, and then he hung up. Shizuo returned the phone to his pocket. He hadn't actually expected the men to agree. Slowly, Shizuo's face broke into a vicious grin.

At last, he thought. I can have my revenge on Izaya. At last, I can really hurt him.

xxx

But revenge would have to wait, for Shizuo didn't see Izaya in Ikebukuro the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that. Shizuo was beginning to think that the flea had somehow caught onto him, but then he finally spotted Izaya loitering outside of Russian Sushi.

Shizuo's first instinct was to yell Izaya's name, to throw something extraordinarily heavy at him, to go insane with rage, but he held back. Instead, he kept completely silent as he stalked over to Izaya, seizing him by the hood of his coat and wrapping an arm around his neck.

Izaya reacted quickly by stabbing his flickblade into Shizuo's arm, but Shizuo didn't even feel the pain. When Izaya realized who he was, he looked surprised for just a moment, then he recovered with a grin.

"Hi, Shizu-chan!" Izaya said happily. Shizuo let go of the hood, keeping his other arm clamped firmly around Izaya's neck, to wrench the blade out of his arm and throw it aside. "You're so quiet today; I didn't even know you there!"

Shizuo didn't say anything, but he tightened his grip on Izaya and hauled him away down the street. Izaya stumbled as he tried to keep up, trying to relieve the pressure on his throat.

"Where're we going, Shizu-chan?" Izaya choked out. Not even near-asphyxiation could keep him quiet.

"Shut up." It was the first time Shizuo had spoken as of yet, and he could tell that the calm in his voice made Izaya uneasy.

"Aw, but–" Izaya started, but Shizuo tightened his grip even more so that Izaya couldn't talk.

It took twenty minutes for Shizuo to finally arrive at the right address. It was an abandoned warehouse or something like that. He kicked open the door and walked inside.

The four men were there, seated at a table. They had furnished the place like a study or an office, poorly masking the fact that it was really just a rotting building the city couldn't afford to tear down.

"We weren't expecting you to deliver him so soon," one of the men said. "Well done."

Shizuo felt Izaya begin struggling against his iron grip, trying to get free. Another man walked over, holding a roll of duct tape. Shizuo held onto Izaya while the man wrapped the tape around Izaya's arms and legs, and only once Izaya was well-bound did Shizuo let go, shoving him to the floor. Then he walked away.

"Hold on a moment," the first man said. "Don't you want your money?"

"No," Shizuo replied brusquely, not turning around. "Just make him suffer."

Izaya hummed thoughtfully, and Shizuo could feel that damned smirk on his back. "Bye-bye, Shizu-chan~!" he called. Shizuo walked a little more quickly, wanting to get away from that obnoxious voice. "I'd say 'see ya later', but I guess–"

Anger throbbing in his temples, and as Shizuo stepped outside, he let the door fall closed behind him. It would have cut Izaya's words short if a harsh smack hadn't already done the job. The smack was followed by the deeper sounds of punches and kicks, interspaced with quiet gasps of pain and forced, defiant laughs.

Shizuo didn't look back.