Because we all need some major cheering up after the final episodes of Durarara.

Chapter one:

"I'm gonna make a change, for once in my life."

Death.

The end of life.

A permanent cessation of all vital functions.

The ruin or destruction of something.

Otherwise known as demise, the end, passing, and even expiration.

Expiration.

As if something as serious as death could be synonymous with a carton of milk going bad in the fridge.

How foolish.

Humans are foolish creatures, which can be the very thing that always drew Izaya Orihara's attention. They make mistakes, and that point is when they become deliciously interesting; when they stray from the humdrum. Why do they do the things they do? Say the things they say? It's all quite a gripping matter to muddle over, to watch unfold before your own eyes.

He absolutely loved humans, their flaws and all. Watching them create their own circles of friends, create a livelihood, and even destroy themselves and others. It filled something in him, loving them. Maybe he never quite realized just to what extent he relied on his beautiful humans. All those years of strolling through cities, eyes wide with mischievous admiration and arms open, had been hiding his greatest flaws.

Maybe if he had accepted his fatal flaws sooner-

Maybe if he hadn't tried to love all humans-

Maybe if that damn beast hadn't-

No, Izaya scoffed as he trained his eyes on the darkened clouds blocking out the stars. There was no point in blaming him for this, not now. What was going to occur and pierce his flesh at any moment was not the fault of Shizuo Heiwajima, that damned beast. No force could have changed this moment or the imposing man staring down at him. Shizuo's quiet fury was meant for him, and despite his… fear, he would not shy away.

Because this was over the moment he knocked that crane over.

This war that feuded between he and the beast of Ikebukuro had to come to an end, and Izaya was definitely not the victor.

"Do it, monster."

He needed him to do it, to actually become the monster that he always claimed he was. That way he could die knowing that he didn't… That he of all people wasn't in lov-...

Do it, my monster. Izaya thought, sweat dripping down the side of his face as he anxiously awaited his death, his absolution.

Though his bleeding body tensed in fearful anticipation, the pain that he associated with death didn't come.

He looked up, eyes training on the cruel metal of the gun pointed at his head.

No… That was not how this was supposed to go.

Izaya paled as a fresh wave of fear crashed over him, drowning him. He was shaking and a horrible gnawing pain was clawing at his heart. Death was coming, but it wasn't coming from the one person he needed it to come from. If the beast didn't accept his title of monster, then Izaya wouldn't be able to go to his grave denying the ache inside him. The ache that was entirely separate from his physical injuries.

The reaper had come and her eyes were cold as they bore into his collapsed, weak body. Varona wouldn't hesitate in killing him like Shizuo.

The bullet tore through him, sealing his regrets with an unforgiving kiss of death.

His short life had not flashed before his eyes like he had thought it might, instead, as unimaginable pain tore his being apart, he simply wondered if things could have been different. As he laid on the cold pavement, coughing on his own blood, he wondered if he and Shizuo could have been friends.

Was it possible?

The thought rang with a pleasant tune, and he found that he ached for it. In these last moments, it was the only pleasant feeling he felt.

Izaya stared with fading vision up at the dark, starless sky, wishing for a chance to make a wish on a star. He would have wished for a second chance, a chance to change himself and be the kind of person Shizuo Heiwajima could befriend.

Such a foolish thought. Maybe he really was a human.

God's don't bleed, after all.

The lights of the city became fuzzy, blending with the growing darkness. His Ikebukuro was fading into nothing, and he wanting nothing more than to reach out and grab it, to pull it back. The last of the lights finally blinked out just as the pain that had racked his emancipated body vanished, and all at once his world became gray and lifeless.

He reached out and his hand passed through the gray air slowly, as if he was treading water. The limp strands of his dark hair fell back from his eyes, blown back by wind that was without a trace of warmth. The wondrous city and it's lights had dissipated into the fog of this unnatural world of nothingness. There were no humans to delight him. There wasn't even cement under his feet, only emptiness.

More than anything, he wanted to scream.

Here, in this vast emptiness, this endless gray, no one would hear his cries. They would be lost in the shifting air, like a child screaming into a thunderstorm. The thought brought a disturbed laugh from his pale lips. No one had ever heard his cries on Earth, either.

It would be safe to fall apart in this place, because no one would see him. So he closed his eyes to this lonely place and it's weightlessness. He closed his eyes and curled in on himself, rubbing his arms just to try and see if he could still feel.

He couldn't.

The agony that had been shattering his body like the most fragile of glass was reduced to nothing. Izaya pressed his cheek against his knee and brought his hand to his face, examining and stretching it before his eyes. He flexed the fingers one at a time. They all worked. Inch by inch he moved his eyes and hands over the rest of his body, starting with his arms, feeling for anything.

If he could just feel something, even pain, perhaps that would mean this was all just a dream. His body had been ruined, the bones in his arms crushed, his insides likely suffering what would be equivalent to a meltdown in a nuclear factory. The pain was sobering, turning his fight with Shizuo into something very real. Something very frightening. So he was confident that if he just kept prodding that there would be pain.

Izaya wrapped his hands around his thigh and squeezed, pressing his thumbs in with all the strength he could manage. The skin gave and split open under the pressure, but still he felt nothing. The bloodless tear smiled up at him, mocking him.

He released the abused appendage and wrapped his arms around both of his legs, squeezing them tight to his chest. His breathing was coming out in sharp, panicked gasps. While his body seemed to have lost all sensitivity, his mind seemed to be in tact, and it was running wild.

He had died, and it was just as horrific as he feared.

Shizuo really had done it- How could he?

The man hadn't pulled the trigger, but he allowed Izaya to be gunned down.

Yet no matter how much Izaya ran the situation over in his head, analysing everything from the way Shizuo stood above him to the people in the street, he couldn't find the strength to be angry. Izaya knew that he had sewn himself into his own fate. By goading Shizuo, taunting him, tricking him, he had made this outcome inevitable.

His hands began to shake involuntarily at the thought, and distressed at the sight of them he yanked his hood up and buried his face his knees. The once silky soft feel of his coat against his neck and cheek wasn't there this time to comfort him. He tried to find comfort in the darkness behind his eyes, but it was worse than the grey.

There was no way to know how long he stayed like that, curled in on himself like a child. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't find peace. Not even in his thoughts. Those were plagued with memories that he didn't even realize meant so much to him. Struggling to stretch up onto his tip toes and peer into his baby sister's cribs, only to be disappointed to find them sleeping and not doing something more interesting. Glancing up over his tea to see his sister's working on a puzzle, each having assigned the other with certain pieces. The tug of Shinra's hand on his as he dragged him down the halls of Raira academy, mouth moving a mile a minute.

...The rush of wind against his face as he sprinted down the main streets of Ikebukuro, Shizuo hot on his heels.

Death seemed to know just what buttons to push in order to punish him.

In his torture the only comfort he could find was in the thought of how he might have fixed things so they would have turned out different. Perhaps he could have smiled more often at his one friend, a genuine smile instead of his usual. He could have given Shizuo a chance. These were bittersweet thoughts, horrible in their pleasure, because he was well aware of how and what he could have done to change his life. Shinra didn't have to tell him how messed up he was for him to know it.

"Shinra," Izaya's lips moved, the volume of his words stolen by the grey mist before they could even reach his ears. "You were always pushing Shizuo and me to be friends. I wonder what you would you say to me now. Do you think we really could have been friends?"

The mist would give no answer to his silent question, despite how many times he asked.

These thoughts were his only company for what felt like years. He had tried to distract himself by counting the seconds, but he lost count in the millions. So he would try again, and again, just to keep the memories at bay a little longer. The silence became so suffocating that he often wondered if it was possible to kill yourself once you are already dead, but the answer was obvious.

Beaten down by the isolation of the grey, Izaya now floated on his back, eyes staring up into the mists. "I want…" He mouthed and reached out, as if he could grab the words out of the air. "Despite everything I want the chance to be a friend, your friend, Shizuo. Is that okay?"

After however long it had been, this was the first time he tried to voice his wish.

This time, instead of the torturous silence that always plagued his questions, he heard a faint sound. Izaya's body jolted up and his head snapped around to find the source, eyes desperate. The grey nothingness gave away none of it's secrets, no matter how urgently he looked or how hard he squinted. He shifted and tried to walk or push himself forward, hands reaching forward towards the faint sound.

He knew what a human laugh sounded like.

His struggles were put to an end when small hands wrapped around his eyes, blinding him to the grey of the realm.

"Oh, you are going to owe me for this one, Orihara." A quiet, unfamiliar voice broke through the laughter, words ghosting against the shell of his ear.

A swell of nausea wretched through Izaya's body like a furious tidal wave, and he lurched forward as dry heaves shook his body. The sensation was like his stomach was trying to turn itself inside out. The hands had left his eyes but he kept them pinched closed as the empty contents of his stomach tried to abandon ship. He could still hear quiet chuckling behind him, could feel the presence.

Then, he felt soft fabric pressed under his cheek. The weight of his head pressing him further into the material.

He felt a tingle of pain - pain - along his hands and on his cheek.

Sound, blessed sound, prickled at his ears; a man humming a cheery tune and his own faint gasp.

The relief that he felt was stifled when his stomach lurched again, this time successful in ridding his body of it's contents. He almost sobbed when he tasted the vile contents as it spilled from his lips. It might have been horrid and humiliating, but he could actually taste.

"Whoa, Izaya?"

Hands wrapped around Izaya's shoulders, beginning to urge him up. For him they came out of nowhere and, regardless of the heaves racking his abdomen, he yanked his body away from their touch. Sensation was an foreign feeling to him now, and Izaya was just as surprised by its abrupt return as he was by how much he was afraid of it. An image of Shizou's fist flashed through his mind and he flinched, backing away farther from the touch.

Izaya snapped his eyes open as his body was reintroduced with the idea of gravity, only to slam them shut again when his irises were flooded with light. He heaved against his hand and reached around with his spare hand to feel- to feel everything around him; the grain of flooring underneath him, cold and hard, the stiff arm leading up the side of what could have been a end table, and finally, the tickle of furr against his neck and cheek.

Those hands were on him again, touching his arm. "What the hell? Have you finally lost your mind? Oh, did Shizou catch you in the head with something? Hey, are you even listening to me?"

The voice was familiar, one that had plagued so many of his memories in the grey.

Izaya forced one eye open, hands gripping the sides of his pants as light lanced his corneas. "Sh… Shinra?" He croaked.

Searching, his hands released their grip on his pants to reach up and touch the face of another human being for the first time in what felt like years. His eyes struggled to adjust to the light, but he could make out a outline of white and brown hovering over him. The shape shifted and cold skin pressed against his hands, urging them back down to his sides.

"Uh, Okay…" Shinra said, "I think I should take another look at you. Strange, you were fine a few moments ago. Stay still for once, Izaya. Wouldn't want to damage that brain of yours, would you?"

Izaya brought a hand up to his forehead and rubbed at his temple as he slowly began to survey his surroundings. The simple decor of Shinra's apartment greeted his searching gaze, looking far more glamorous to him now than it ever had. As his pulse raced, he darted his gaze over every inch of furnishing and object in the room, scrutinizing them.

What was happening? Had he finally lost his mind, stranded there in the grey?

"I was… fine?" He whispered, eyes honing in on the door. "That's… impossible. I felt the bullet. She is a marksmen, there is no way she would have missed, point blank no less."

"Bullet, huh?" Shinra chuckled as he reached out to gently blot a piece of cloth along the sides of Izaya's head, checking for blood when he pulled it back. "Shizuo must have hit you pretty hard. You're even hallucinating! That's no way to start a friendship. When you get better and come back to school we should try introducing you two again. Just with fewer knives."

Izaya blinked and reached down his chest to feel for any signs of a bullet wound. The simple movement, the muscles in his arms and hands working together towards a goal, reminded him of the way he had been able to feel the bones in his arms being pulverised under Shizuo's fist. His arms fell limp at his sides, muscles aching.

"I need to go." Izaya groaned, making a move to stand. If he was going to hallucinate that he was alive, then he might as well make the most of it.

"So I'll have Celty give you a lift home," Shira put a hand on his arm, pressing lightly. "But I think it would be best for all of us if you stayed the night."

"No, I-"

Loud banging, a fist against wood, made Izaya flinch involuntarily.

Shinra raised an eyebrow and took several steps forward so he was standing in front of Izaya, blocking his escape. "Celty, could you get that for me please? Oh, and I could also use a bit of help in here too."

Izaya narrowed his eyes at Shinra and took another step towards him, but something about the man made him pause and stare harder. There was definitely something different about his friend. The usual coat that he wore almost religiously was gone, replaced with a familiar looking school uniform. A symbol on the clean, pressed coat stared back at him.

His eyebrows rose in surprise when he recognized it, and slowly brought his eyes up to meet Shinra's worried gaze. His fists clenched, and he could feel the cool ooze of blood begin to seep out from in between his fingers. A few drops traced down his wrist as he lifted them to see the evidence for himself.

"Izaya..?"

His clouded thoughts began to grab at every piece of evidence it could, scrutinizing them. These puzzle pieces began to twist and piece themselves together in his ramshackled mind, allowing him to finally grasp the situation he now found himself in. He felt a flush of red make it's way up his neck when realization hit home just how long it had taken him to understand.

He had died, there was no arguing against that fact. The sound of his final breath rattling in his chest wasn't a horror that one just forgets. He had died, but he could feel the hammering of his heart against his chest, the refreshing rush of air into his lungs. He had died, but now he was bleeding. Death had burned away at his mind, at his soul while he was in the grey until there was nothing but colorless ash. Now, he had risen up from those ashes, born into a new life.

A slow smirk began to creep onto his lips.

"What the hell is that rat bastard doing here!?"

The smirk fell when that voice thundered off the walls, as did every ounce of color in Izaya's face.