Chapter Text
The bar is busy tonight, and Shizuo’s sure he’ll be working overtime.
Of course, the number of costumers never actually matters much; the owner always has a thing or two for Shizuo to do after hours regardless. Sometimes it’s just one quick fuck, slap of skin on skin and the pain that lingers beyond that. Other times it’s a little more, the weight of another man’s cock in the blonde’s mouth and desperation fighting nausea. Then a longer, slower, far more painful fuck – fuck, because what the hell else can Shizuo call it when he can’t fight back with words or strength, when it doesn’t feel good according to any definition Shizuo’s ever known?
The drug was Shinra’s idea, and so Shizuo could probably conclude that he has the doctor to thank for all this.
He could blame him.
He doesn’t, though, and that’s because he wasn’t simply strung along by Shinra’s desires. He accepted something that was hesitantly offered to him, and he accepted it knowing full well that he’d been living for far too long with the curse of his strength – long enough by then that he depended upon it. He’d been aware of the possible consequences of losing it, and Shinra had made sure to remind him of that.
It had come as anything but a surprise when he’d had no choice but to quit his job as Tom-san’s bodyguard.
He knows now as he did then that running away was cowardly. It’s made him weak in more ways than one, and Shizuo’s not about to blame anyone but himself for the consequences.
And it isn’t as if he didn’t resist at first. He got mad, shouted and struggled and tried to tear himself away from the boss’s hands on his wrists, his fingers working at his belt and the zipper beneath it. He tried to rely on his strength, and for that he’d been beaten pretty brutally.
“Shizuo-kun…?! What on earth happened to you – weren’t you supposed to be working today?”
Shizuo grins, feeling dried blood tug at the skin of his cheeks as he does so. “Yeah. Ran into some guys on my way back.” He knows he probably smells pretty strongly of booze – just another symptom of his beating, the crash of glass hitting the top of his head, and his hair and shoulders are still slightly wet despite the long walk back to Shinra’s apartment.
“Were you… drinking?” The doctor looks more than just concerned. There’s also the tension of almost-but-not-quite knowing what happened. The guilt of imagining that he’s partially responsible.
Shizuo doesn’t miss a beat. “Spilled some.”
His face is always left alone, of course, because – as he soon discovered – what once seemed to be a reasonably respectable bar is actually the furthest thing from that. His looks attract unscrupulous customers who can do as they please with him for a small fee – money he never sees, himself.
Licking, biting, orders he can’t but follow, and the marks don’t ever really have time to fade. There’s this constant pain in his back and chest and head. It puts him in an awful mood, but anger is just as beyond his control now as everything else. It’s so beyond his control that he can’t even act on it most of the time.
“Heiwajima-kun, I presume?”
The blonde glances up from the glass he’s been absentmindedly cleaning. The speaker is a younger man – in his mid to late thirties, maybe, and that’s young enough to placate Shizuo somewhat. He’s wearing a crooked grin and a rumpled suit. His breath reeks of alcohol already, and Shizuo guesses that his expression is supposed to be flirtatious. It strikes Shizuo as nothing more or less than creepy, though, and his skin crawls in anticipation of what’s to come.
He takes his time answering. “…Yeah.”
The guy’s obviously not looking for another round of beer.
“Why don’t you and I,” the man offers as his grin turns toothy and yellow and downright lecherous, “head on over to that cozy little back room?”
If Shizuo knew what an oxymoron was, he’d definitely tag the man’s words as such. He doesn’t, though, and his mind goes instantly blank as he sets the glass down on the counter, as he rounds it and lets himself be led away with nothing more than a brisk nod at his older coworker.
“Have fun, you two,” the other bartender calls, and Shizuo nods wordlessly once more.
“Hey,” Shizuo murmurs. His words are meant for Celty but directed at the lengthening shadows before him. The park bench is cold and hard beneath him, his finger and thumb grasping a burning cigarette as if his life depends on it. “Why do you think people kill themselves?”
Celty’s fingers hover over the keypad of her PDA for a long while.
[It’s a mistake.]
Shizuo grins emptily. “Yeah. Guess it is.”
He’d never do it, of course. He may not be enjoying life now, and maybe he’s not stupid enough to believe that it’ll get better soon, but suicide is just another kind of running away. He’s always hated it, the concept of it and the people who leave others alone and guilty and the society that makes them think there’s no other way.
He can’t help wondering about it despite that.
Celty watches him in perfect silence for a moment before raising the small screen again.
[There’s always a bright side.]
She knows, of course, and Shizuo isn’t trying hard to hide it from her.
“Yeah – yeah, of course there is.”
The man demands first and foremost that Shizuo not stay silent. His eyes glint as the blonde tugs his belt off and climbs out of his pants. They’re practically stewing in unabashed lust as his boxers and shirts follow, as Shizuo’s cock jerks in response to every slight motion. The bartender waits quietly – eyes averted, cheeks stained red with shame – and he can’t help jumping as the stranger’s hand closes on his swaying member.
“Take mine off, too.”
Shizuo does – fingers shaking, teeth scraping his lower lip to keep his composure somehow in place – and this is usually how it is. Behind closed doors, these people don’t give the slightest damn about how they look to others. They don’t care that they’re cruel and cold and demanding with a naked bluntness that goes beyond simple ugliness.
They don’t care about Shizuo.
He’s not surprised, then, when the man fists his fingers in dyed-blonde hair hard enough that it hurts – when he brings Shizuo’s head close to his cock and demands, “Suck it” – the pain and the trying to pull away because it’s all he can do to maintain some semblance of self-respect.
He gives up quickly, and there’s saliva running past his chin before he can even begin to work at the sticky heat in his mouth, tongue slipping back and forth as the obstruction twitches and stiffens and the other man shoves his way deeper and deeper.
Shizuo moans and breathes hard and knows just how pathetic he sounds, how like a cheap whore. He pretends to like it anyway, though, pretends that he wouldn't rather be anywhere but here.
Shizuo wakes up breathing hard, air catching in his throat and mingling with little unwilling grunts and whimpers. His hair is covered in blood again, and he’s staring up at the round, sweaty face of his boss. A few wayward wrinkles stand out here and there – many of those thanks to the unrepentant grin splitting the man’s face like a crack in a dilapidated sidewalk – and his breath reeks of poor hygiene and cheap beer as it hits Shizuo’s face at uneven intervals.
“Stay still, now,” the man demands, and Shizuo responds by trying desperately to push him away.
He’s rewarded with a resounding blow to his unguarded stomach. Every molecule of oxygen seems to leave him at once, and his abuser takes the opportunity to shove his way past the blonde’s too-tight entrance. Shizuo’s desperate stabs at drawing air into his lungs turn panicked as the first thrust strikes the ultra-sensitive bundle of nerves within. His back arches and his cock throbs so that it’s all he can do not to reach up and coax it to full hardness himself.
He’s disgusting. This is disgusting. It’s not a turn-on, it’s not meant to feel good, and Shizuo is messed up for feeling the way he does – in the very pit of his stomach, in the back corner of his mind that isn’t blinded by rage and humiliation.
“S-stop,” he finally manages, but by that time there’s little to no point. His boss’s fingernails are leaving bloody crescents on the skin of his thighs, his legs are spread wide and draped over the older man’s shoulders like a twisted scarf, and he’s being slammed into with more force than he can even remotely handle.
Face flushed and muscles coiled, he comes with a reluctant moan – and his boss just keeps hammering his way deeper and deeper, bruising impacts that cease to feel like anything more than a dull thrum of pain and humiliation.
Back behind the counter with a fresh glass and cloth in his hands, Shizuo sighs as he lets his fingers graze the wood of the bar’s surface. It’s permanently sticky, stained and scored by years of violent customers and shot glasses slid back and forth. It’s dark in some places, light in others, old and worn and probably long overdue to be replaced.
He closes his eyes and lets himself imagine how it would look anywhere but here – still a little worse for wear, yeah, still scarred and mostly used up, but he wants to believe that it’s only defined by a temporary condition. A bad environment, ugly and corrupt.
He decides after many failed renditions, though, that it doesn’t really matter where the fixture goes. It’ll still smell of smoke, and the legacy of all that’s passed before it will always remain an indelible part of the wood’s very core. Its scars are far greater than a simple second skin. They don’t comprise a mask or a chain or a rope to be cut and cast aside.
It’s too late for it to become anything different.