Daddy's Little Girl

[unicornhunter]

Erika giggled a little. "Well, everyone wants to be in the spotlight, so I guess it is!"

Feeling more comfortable, she sprawled out over the couch.

"Unless you prefer more obscure characters. But you're probably not the main main character. You're too mysterious for that!"

She tilted her head to the side, as though looking at Izaya from a different angle would tell her something about him that she didn't already know.

"Then again, you could be that one main character where the reader has no idea about any of your backstory - or you're so blasted mysterious even to the viewer that it drives them crazy!" Erika sighed as a few titles were coming to mind as she was talking. "But your author would have to be a genius to pull someone like you off and still have you be the main character. You're so difficult to peg down, after all! I would know - I've tried to write fan fiction of you and Shizu-chan, and I just can't get your personality down on paper right, no matter how much I edit! Shizu-chan is easy, though. I can just shove it to Dotachin and ask him if he'd do something like that. Though it gets really annoying when he tries to use that to sink my ship."

She pouted as she remembered how Kadota kept insisting that Shizuo and Izaya were not a couple. They so totally were, though! How could they not be?

[UndergroundGod]

He smiled a bit more at her laugh, intrigued by it. It was an anomaly in this otherwise dismal arc. Here they were, hoping that her serial rapist-child murderer father was going to get beat to death, and she could laugh a child's light-hearted laughter, musical and optimistic and silly, as if there were a trouble in the world.

When in reality, trouble lurked around every corner in this god forsaken world.

Izaya hadn't heard laughter like that in years, and couldn't imagine that he'd ever laughed in such a carefree way. Leaning against his hand, he continued to observe her with interest. Honestly, her musings on him were entertaining. As long as she didn't start asking him questions about himself (questions he would refuse to answer) he could imagine that spending more time with her would be an interesting character study, if nothing else. This girl, her history, her personality, her mannerisms, her observations… they were all quite unique.

The next words that were out of her mouth though, about… fanfiction? About him and Shizuo? What was… What did she mean? Being as generally knowledgeable as he was, Izaya was rarely lost in conversation and he found it unfamiliar and unpleasant to be in the dark over what she was talking about. Apparently, she'd been… writing about him? What in the world was she…

He shook his head, frowning a little and finally drawing his eyes away from her. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about, but I'm fairly sure I don't want to know."

[unicornhunter]

Erika readjusted herself on the couch in such a way that required her to lean her head back over the couch's arm to look at Izaya. Her hat fell off and plopped onto the floor, showing that she actually had a lot of hair tied up in a bun.

"Hm? You don't know what shipping is?"

She assumed that was what Izaya was confused about. After all, who didn't know about fan fiction?

She grinned at him.

"It's when you think two characters in an anime or manga or book or anything really should be together, but the author either hasn't outright said they're a couple or is oblivious of the sexual tension he or she has given the two characters! Romances are built off shipping and shipping wars. Who will our main heroine pick? Or will the two love interests fall for each other instead!?"

She rolled herself over, her arms and chin resting on the couch arm. As she moved, one of her hair clips fell out and clattered to the floor. But she didn't pay it any mind as she continued to fill Izaya in on the complexities of shipping.

"Dotachin keeps insisting that I'm crazy for shipping you and Shizu-chan, but the sexual tension between the two of you is so obvious! I honestly can't see why he and Subaru can't see it, either! I know Walker can, he just doesn't like it."

She pouted. Really, she didn't know why even Walker refused to agree with her....

[UndergroundGod]

Though it had been the very principle of fanfiction that had confused him, Erika had taken his statement to be referring to something else.

Apparently she hadn't been listening very well to begin with though, as he said he didn't even want to know what she was talking about, meaning he hadn't wanted any sort of explanation.

Regardless of his preferences pertaining his amount of knowledge on the terminology, she began to explain what "shipping" was, and Izaya immediately had a bad feeling. Despite not knowing the meaning of particular words, Izaya was quickly able to use context clues to figure it all out. Fanfiction must be stories written by fans (an obvious deduction), shipping was pairing two characters together as a couple, and Erika had just talked about writing about him and Shizuo…

There was only one conclusion he could come to.

As she spoke, Izaya turned in his chair, away from her, and facing the window that overlooked the city beneath them. He managed to do so before she stated outright what he had already figured, that… that she thought he and Shizuo had sexual tension.

He crossed his arms, though his face was trained into a carefree smile, his thoughts bounding from one place to another—he inhaled slowly to calm himself and settle his frantically pounding heart, to stop his stomach from twisting itself into painful knots at the thought of what she was saying.

But he laughed darkly with a wry smile on his face as he announced, "I'm on Dotachin's side, you're crazy. There's tons of tension between Shizu-chan and me, but it's all murderous, not sexual."

[unicornhunter]

Erika may not have been the brightest crayon in the box when she was at school.

But she read plenty of manga and watched enough anime to know that Izaya turning away from her was a hint that she had hit the shipping nail on the head. She grinned, but the grin soon turned into a pout when he denied it.

But the grin quickly returned as she hopped off of the couch and walked around Izaya's desk, closing the distance between them as she leaned forward, giving him a knowing-look.

"Izayan, do you know what Foe-Yay is? It's when two people who claim to hate each other and want to kill each other - foes, in other words - keep going at each other, usually denying any sexual attraction to their rival slash enemy. But it's so dearly obvious that they do like each other! Oh! I can show you clips of examples on Youtube!"

She reached over to start searching for the video clips on his computer.

[UndergroundGod]

What Erika seemed to forget… was that this wasn't an anime. It wasn't a manga, or a cartoon, or a movie, or some other fantasy world where things… worked out. People didn't get together just because other people said they should, especially not enemies or rivals that were constantly seeking one another's death. No, in the real world, constant death threats only meant that people wanted each other dead. There was rarely any twisted meaning behind it.

Despite her insane reasoning, though, when it came right down to it, she wasn't completely wrong in her analysis. But Izaya had no intention of confessing that to her and feeding into her delusions, lest she thought it fitting to try to make him think that Shizuo's outlook on the situation could be altered.

Shizuo wanted him dead. That was all there was to it. There was no sense in ever getting his hopes up, not even by validating feelings that shouldn't exist by telling someone else about them.

Then again, if murderous rage was the only attention he ever got from Shizuo, he would take what was offered to him.

Izaya frowned to himself as he heard her get up off the couch and approach him behind his desk. The last thing he needed was for her to get closer to him. Though his face was impassive, he was in no mood to have his personal bubble invaded, and Erika had no concept of personal space. As if to prove it, she was suddenly practically on top of him, asking him about some other silly terminology, defining it (much to his displeasure), and then she was… reaching over for his computer and typing on it.

Immediately, he batted her hands away from his computer (perhaps with a tad bit more irritation than he meant to display) and locked the screen before she could do anything else. He gave her one of his fairly disturbing grins used to communicate to others that he could be justifiably insane when need be, and told her seriously, "Try that again and you might find yourself falling from a deadly height."

[unicornhunter]

Erika pouted. She pouted a great pout that rivaled the over-exaggerated pouts in the anime she watched.

Kadota had once remarked that if she and Walker didn't cut down on the anime, that they'd turn into anime characters. (To which Erika had remarked that they were anime characters. To which Kadota had repeatedly hit his head on Togusa's dashboard. To which Togusa got rather alarmed over. Walker had simply laughed with her during the whole charade.) BUT ANYWAY. None of that was the point.

The point was that Izaya was being mean when all she really wanted to do was keep their minds off her father while there was not much they could really do about it right then....

But she didn't let Izaya in on that as she crossed her arms and acted much like a child that was denied a favorite toy or sweet. She plopped back down on the couch, yet another hair clip springing out of her hair and burying itself into the couch cushion. But she didn't pay it any mind. Though if her hair clips kept going like that, her hair would fall down and her hair clips would be all over Izaya's office.

[UndergroundGod]

Even if she hadn't taken his threat seriously (which was fine, he hadn't really meant it), it still accomplished what he wanted. Her hands moved away from his computer and she walked away from him again to place herself back on the couch. Just having her further away from him allowed him to take a deep, slow breath that significantly calmed him down, though a hint of annoyance was still fluttering unpleasantly around his chest.

Talking about Shizuo usually put him in an irritable mood and now was no difference. Despite his comfort just a few minutes ago with having Erika occupy the office with him (shared tragedy often beget comradery, even if only to a slight degree), he now wanted to be alone.

"Don’t you have somewhere else to go or something you need to get done?" he asked a bit harshly, folding his arms across his chest and staring at his locked computer screen.

[unicornhunter]

Erika pouted more at Izaya's question.

But she supposed that he had a point.... But she didn't really want to go home just yet.... She wouldn't really be able to be herself and relax around Walker again until she knew for sure that her father was going to cease being an issue....

Yet she stood back up anyway.

"Fine. I'll leave."

She made her way across the room, but once she reached the door, she turned around. "But don't even try to deny that you're just going to look at stalker-y photos of Shizu-chan once I leave!"

With that, she let herself out of the office and hurried down the stairs. She didn't actually expect him to come running after her - Izaya wasn't that type of guy. But she actually did smile to herself. She bet she was right. There was no way they didn't like each other!

She walked on back to the apartment she shared with Walker, grinning all the way.

[UndergroundGod]

Resisting all his instinctual urges to watch her (both for her reaction, and for the need he had to keep himself protected at all times), he kept his eyes trained strictly on the computer screen. So he didn't see the pout on her lips, but when she spoke up, he certainly heard it. He heard her get back up off the couch and cross the room as he strained every ounce of focus to keep from looking at her.

As her hand was on the door knob, he thought briefly to himself about what he had to do the rest of the day. He had a few emails to respond to, should probably make a few rounds on his online boards (which he hadn't had the focus to do in a few days now), and then he had a few contacts he needed to call up…

But now his thoughts were back on Shizuo and though he usually tried his best not to obsess… having Erika bring up the topic in such a way made it impossible to think about anything else. He thought briefly that he may just need to scroll through one of the many password protected folders buried deep within his computer just to get the whole thing out of his system.

Erika's last words hit him like a slap in the face and he was suddenly subject to the unfamiliar sensation of his cheeks flushing, endlessly thankful that he heard the door closing, meaning she had left before he had the opportunity to make a complete fool out of himself.

After she left, he jumped from his chair and hurried over to lock the door. He didn't intend on seeing anyone else today, not now, and if anyone else showed up, they'd probably be out of luck. With everything going on, with the impending threat of Mamoru (which he'd hopefully nullified, though he had an ominous feeling that they hadn't heard the last of him), and now this reminder of Shizuo… Izaya honestly wasn't used to the emotional center of his brain getting such a work out and he was honestly exhausted.

Couple that with the fact that he'd been sleeping even poorer than usual, and Izaya was ready to collapse. He would have, if he thought his body would be willing to cooperate.

Instead he moved around the office, picked up the two hairclips that the girl had left behind. Setting them on his desk, he plopped down into his chair, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. It was rare for him to hope (as opposed to things he normally planned, and therefore was assured of the outcome), but he found himself doing just that, looking forward to the day when everything would go back to normal.

[unicornhunter]

Erika opened the door to her apartment. She closed the door behind her, and as she slipped her bag off her shoulder, she called out, "Walker! I'm back!"

Erika frowned a little as she didn't receive a reply right away.

"Walker? You here?"

She began to search the apartment. Had - had he gone off with Kadota and Togusa? When she failed to find him in the apartment, she went to the phone and called his cell phone. Surely he'd pick up, right?

****

Slowly, Mamoru opened his eyes, and he sat up. His neck and back ached, and his head was pounding, and it took him a moment to remember why he was lying on the ground in the first place.

Shizuo Heiwajima.

He pulled himself into a sitting position, the memories flowing back to him. That bastard, he was going to rue the day, no one kept him from Erika, no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one!

Mamoru forced himself onto his feet and trudged on. He'd find Heiwajima again. And this time, he was going to successfully kill him!

[Walker Yumasaki]

After a long morning of doing nothing at home and hearing nothing about a new job opportunity, Walker decided to spend the day out on the town. Since Erika had been gone for so long and he got tired of waiting, there was nothing else to do. Maybe he'd buy her a present to cheer her up. He heard there was a new manga being released by Shungiku Nakamura and wondered if she'd like it.

But once stepping into the bookstore, he got lost in his own little world, forgetting the time and even forgetting about his cell phone. When it went off, he started to panic as the Nyan Cat song began wailing and echoing through the quiet store. He apologized profusely and answered in a low voice.

"Hello? Rii-Rii? What is it? I'm sorry I forgot to leave a note, I didn't think I would be out for so long."

[unicornhunter]

Erika smiled a little sadly. "No, it's okay. I've been out on my own for quite a while, there's no reason why you should've just been waiting around for me...." She crossed the room and sat upon the couch. "I think I'm finally done with what I had to deal with these last few days. Do you have plans for tonight? It's been a while since we've been on a date!"

Her smile turned into a very genuine grin. She'd make it up to Walker. She really, really would.

****

Mamoru needed more chloroform. For that, he needed money. He hated the idea of wasting so much of it on Shizuo Heiwajima, but....

"Dude, what did you think you were doing, pissing off Heiwajima?"

"How was I supposed to know he's built like a tank!? If someone told YOU that there was a guy who could take a knife to the stomach and not be affected in the least or take a hit to the head that would kill a regular person but he'd just get angry at you and punch you half-way across Ikebukuro, would YOU believe them without seeing it or experiencing it firsthand?"

"Ha ha, I guess you're right. But dude, really, don't do that again. You're lucky to be alive!"

If he was going to get his beloved Erika back, he'd have to take extra measures.

But he will dispose of Shizuo Heiwajima. And he will get his daughter back.

He wouldn't let anyone get the in way.

[Walker Yumasaki]

A date, huh? That didn't sound like a bad idea. The otaku smiled and felt a weight lift from his heart. He didn't have to worry if Erika wanted to spend some quality time with him now. He would have to buy her that gift now and dammit, she would like it.

"I don't have plans, so that sounds wonderful. Do you want to meet me at Russia Sushi? Or no- better yet- I'm gonna treat you like a princess! I'm gonna take you to that really nice teppanyaki place nearby! And don't you worry about anything else! I wanna surprise the heck outta ya! So get into something nice and I'll see you there! And don't worry about me, I'm always prepared as you know."

Of course he would drabble on like this, but he loved her and could tell she was having a hard time. He was going to try and make everything right for her... even if it meant taking her out later and buying a ring.

[unicornhunter]

Erika blushed. Walker spoiled her so much! But she liked it.

"You sure, Yumacchi? Not that I'm protesting, I'd love to do that!"

She grinned brightly. She loved Walker, she really did.

*****

Mamoru searched the entire city looking for Shizuo Heiwajima.

He looked in every bar he could slink into, every eatery, every store, every alleyway - every place he could think of. He even managed to focus on hunting down only Shizuo. He ignored the cute girls in their cute outfits with their cute hair and bags for the very first time in his life. He was a man on a mission, and he was going to succeed.

No one kept his daughter away from him, no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one no one!

There. There he was.

Intimidating someone by holding a vending machine over his head, threatening to drop it right on top of them.

For the first time in a very long while, Mamoru felt like he just might not be able to handle the situation.

But the feeling wasn't there for long.

He took out the rag and chloroform, dipped the rag into the bottle, pulled it out, screwed the top back on, put the bottle back into his pocket, then ran for Shizuo. He leaped up and wrapped his arms around Shizuo's neck, trying to smother him with the rag.