Gift fic for flyingisland on Ao3.

Knowing

Ikebukuro was quiet.

It often was now-a-days. The gangs had quieted with a few clashes now and then, but completely manageable by the police. A lot of the colorful characters that had made up the chaos had moved on to new paths, no longer bound in the web of lives known as Ikebukuro.

Or perhaps they hadn't, but Shizuo no longer saw them. His life was peaceful. At last.

He still worked for Tom, still partnered with Varona. And he still possessed his unnatural strength that disrupted the peace, though admittedly, not as often as before.

Shizuo never forgot the day that he believed he had sealed his tormentor for good.

He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting. Walking down the streets of 'Bukuro, just a few steps behind senpai and Varona, he opened and closed his fist in front of him. Nothing had changed. He was still as strong as ever. His temper flared just as easily, just not as frequently without…

A slender figure skipped by him, soft humming moving in tandem with the flutter of his fur-lined coat, twirling once and then turned to face him.

… Shizuo stepped forward and sighed, looking upward at the smoggy sky.

The city was quiet.

"Shizuo… Hey, Shizuo!"

Amber eyes blinked, refocusing and turning to his concerned senpai. He grunted in question, fingers itching for a cigarette.

A pale hand snaked over from behind him, scooping up a piece of ootoro from the tray in front of Shizuo and bringing it back.

"Are you alright? You haven't eaten anything…" Tom queried, gesturing to Shizuo full platter of sushi. Shizuo blinked once, not particularly hungry but acquiescing to eating one of the varied morsels.

"Shizuo needs to meet required nutritional values on a daily basis." Varona said flatly, but Shizuo knew her well enough to know she was scolding him.

The pale hand flashed by again.

"Yeah. I know."

A comfortable silence overtook them as they ate. The sushi stealing hand did not return but he was not entirely vested in his meal anyway. Shizuo found his gaze back on the window and the streets beyond it.

"It's quiet." Tom murmured and Shizuo hummed in agreement. "…It's been six years now, hasn't it?"

Crimson orbs across the street caught amber for a split-second, daring,… and Shizuo gazed right past them.

"Yeah… it has."

After parting ways with his senpai and kouhai for the day, Shizuo continued to walk around his city. Banishing the evil that had been rooted was good for Ikebukuro in the long run, Shizuo mused. Six years ago, the few weeks after… that confrontation, Ikebukuro had been plagued with a surprising rash of crime. Small or large, criminals had lunged from the woodwork with a curious determination. Granted, the police and local enforcements had swept them all up pretty fast, it had been odd and damages had been done.

Entering the park, he ignored the black-clad person playing on the edge of the fountain, laughing for anyone to hear. He was meeting someone here and the echoing whinny of a horse marked her arrival.

Raising a hand in greeting, he smiled, "Yo, Celty."

Celty pulled to a stop next to him and waved once, before flicking her wrist, PDA now in hand.

{Good evening, Shizuo!}

Shizuo felt more at ease with his friend present and relaxed against the stone steps with Celty following his lead.

"You wanted to ask me something?" Shizuo questioned after they had spent a few minutes staring at the empty fountain. Celty jolted, as if she had been in deep thought, and her helmet nodded. Her fingers poised over the PDA, pausing.

{Shizuo, how have you been?}

"Hmm? Been fine."

{I'm glad.} Celty's shoulders slumped, {We… haven't talked lately.}

Shizuo averted his eyes to the ground, feeling some shame at the statement. He would not deny her claim, he had been avoiding her. But it was only because Shinra knew where he was. Perhaps they had stayed in contact. It wouldn't have bothered Shizuo much but recently, every time Celty had stopped to talk to Shizuo she would ask him if he had a message to deliver.

He didn't want to remember him. Not when sometimes it felt like he had never really left to begin with.

But… that wasn't Celty's fault.

"Sorry." He whispered to her and smiled again when she frantically waved her hands in a 'don't worry about it' gesture.

For a while longer they sat in relative silence, making soft small talk. Shizuo explained one of Kasuka's movies, Celty complained about Shinra's increasingly persistent attempts to be intimate, Shizuo asked if Shinra had the guts to propose yet. When the sunset had long gone, they had moved to walk, or Celty's case ride, peacefully down the sidewalk/road.

{-so I was out of town yesterday to take my clients to Kyoto.} She stopped, glancing at the time on her PDA. {I'd better get going before Shinra misses me.} Celty finally typed.

Shizuo grinned at her. Shinra had likely been missing her since she stepped out of their shared apartment. "Yeah. See you later, Celty."

He made to walk off when her PDA suddenly flashed up at him again.

{Shizuo do you want to… tell him anything?}

She could have meant Shinra. But by the unsure way she curled her PDA back to her body, they both knew she meant him. He didn't even have to think about it.

"No."

Celty started and with a quick flourish she pushed her PDA, insistently this time, into his face.

{Are you sure? Nothing at all?}

"Celty. Stop." Shizuo gritted out. "I don't want to talk to him, ever again."

'Vroom! Vroom!' Someone mocked Shooter from behind Celty, out of view.

Celty seemed to wilt but finally nodded, tucking away her PDA. She waved once, shortly, and took off. Shizuo was left grimacing after her. He knew he had disappointed her. But he had more than enough reminders of that person to deal with already.

Shizuo just wanted him to leave.

He was gone from Ikebukuro but the phantom of him remained, so strong was their hatred bleeding into his mind. Shizuo turned away from the specter that Celty's departure had revealed, knowing that no one was actually there. Even with those memories forefront, as if to remind him of how unfinished they had left things that night, he didn't want anything to do with him.

Shizuo kicks his door closed when he gets home and falls into his constant routine.

Take off his shoes, jump in the shower, take out something simple for dinner, and watch some TV before going to bed. Sometimes someone would walk in and perch on his countertop while he cooked but he was always too busy making sure it cooked just right to take notice. Or they would sit on the back of the couch, silently watching whatever he was, but the shows were so interesting he didn't care.

Thankfully, they didn't appear in his bathroom.

Shizuo walked into his bedroom, yawning, and laid down. Pulling the sheets up, he blinked up at the ceiling. He regretted snapping at Celty like that, but he hadn't wanted to blow his temper at her either. She had seemed so…

"Whatever…" Shizuo muttered, turning on his side and closing his eyes. Sleep came to his content mind quickly. Not even the sudden and deep throb in the middle of his chest brought him back to wakefulness.

Shizuo was aware that he was dreaming. He couldn't move or open his eyes but it didn't alarm him in anyway. He felt peaceful. Like everything was right. No worries or trivial concerns. It was warm and it was quiet.

Until a shifting of sheets came from behind him and then two pale arms wrapped around his body, so gentle. Shizuo didn't even stir, to content with this new warmth to move. A quiet laugh breathed against his ear and soft lips brushed against the back of his neck.

Shizuo didn't want to move. This was nice. This was peace.

Those impossibly soft lips trailed up to his ear and Shizuo smiled. He didn't want this to end.

"Goodbye Shizu-chan."

Shizuo woke up to a strange sensation on his chest. Batting the tangled sheets away, he rubbed a hand against his bare chest and his fingers rested on the scar that he had left behind, the very first one. It was tingling, almost painfully but not quiet, just enough to keep it on the forefront of his mind.

Shizuo shrugged it off. If it got any worse he would go to Shinra, but otherwise it was nothing he couldn't handle.

As he got out of bed and made his way to his closet full of bartender uniforms, he briefly wondered why it was so cold.

Prompt: I really like the idea of Shizuo and Izaya never seeing each other again, but when Izaya dies, Shizuo feels a tingling in the first scar Izaya ever left on his chest.

I do believe I will be writing a sequel to this. I'm not sure, we'll see how well this is received.