This fic was partly inspired by my experiences living in Japan. On winter mornings, it was less than 15 degrees Celsius inside the house where I lived. Our classrooms had no heat until late November. Brrrr!

Your friendly neighborhood disclaimer: I own neither Durarara nor its characters. If I did, there would be more drama CDs and more group outings to Russia Sushi. All I own are the words on the page and the ideas in my head.

. . . . .

Shizuo stomped down the dark hallway of a certain Shinjuku apartment building, his boots tracking a trail of melting snow across the imported tile all the way from the elevator doors to the threshold of Izaya's loft. The hallway was lit only by the dim emergency lights powered by the building's backup generator, but Shizuo tread this same path often enough that he didn't need to worry about tripping over any fine furnishings in the darkness—although smashing one of the celadon vases and its spindly little side table into smithereens might have helped to marginally brighten his decidedly sour mood.

Upon reaching Izaya's door, Shizuo shifted the unwieldy cloth bundle he carried and braced it against his left arm and shoulder. The pile of assorted quilts and blankets and boxes of hand warmers was heavy, but it was light as a feather compared to a vending machine or post box.

Once Shizuo had freed up his right hand, he mashed the doorbell five or six times for good measure before jabbing a finger on the intercom button.

"Oi, Izaya! Open this door right now, or I swear to God I'll—wait." He eyed the intercom dubiously. "Does this piece of shit even work when the power's out?"

After a brief pause, Izaya's voice crackled to life over the speaker. The sound was muffled by intermittent bursts of static as a result of Shizuo's habitual manhandling of the hardware, but the voice was unmistakably Izaya's.

"Good evening to you, too, Shizu-chan. And in case your protozoic brain is still percolating: Yes, the intercom is working, no thanks to you. It's wired into the land line."

Shizuo scowled at the door, imagining that Izaya's smartass mug was pasted dead center on it—right where Shizuo's boot would connect when he kicked the door down. "Glad to hear it, flea. Then I know you can hear me loud and clear when I tell you to open this fucking door before I break it down myself. It's fucking freezing out here."

Izaya's voice cut right through another sizzle of static. "Shizu-chan, at what age will you finally be mature enough to realize that the word 'fucking' is a verb, not an all-purpose adjective or adverb?"

Static or no, Shizuo could hear the self-righteous smirk that was plastered on the goddamn face of that goddamn flea. He flipped Izaya off without a second thought, lamenting the intercom's lack of a video monitor.

"Oh, no, you don't," Shizuo growled into the microphone. "The trains don't run this late, so I hauled ass on foot all the way to Shinjuku in the snow to bail you out, and all the thanks I get is a visit from the fucking grammar police?! No, I don't think so."

As if in response to his outburst, Shizuo heard two clicks as the twin deadbolts on the door retracted, followed by the rattle of the chain being undone. Izaya didn't bother with any sort of sophisticated locking mechanism, considering the fact that his front door was an unfortunate casualty of a patented Shizuo rampage at least once every other month. As Izaya had less-than-patiently explained to him while the remnants of the twenty-third busted door were being swept up by the repairmen, information brokering was a lucrative business. But not that lucrative.

The door swung in on its hinges to reveal Izaya…or at least the lumpy, distorted shape of the figure Shizuo assumed was Izaya. Despite being indoors, the flea was clad in his heavy winter coat and draped in at least six scarves, with several more layers underneath. Shizuo realized belatedly that Izaya was shivering uncontrollably, his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. The static over the intercom must have concealed the sound of his teeth chattering.

But Shizuo refused to feel guilty in the slightest. He was already doing the flea a favor, for fuck's sake. Pigs should be sprouting wings and taking flight. Hell should be freezing over and bristling with icicles—which wasn't such a stretch, really, considering the freak snowstorm that was currently blanketing Tokyo in great drifts of quick-freeze whiteness. The snow and ice were wreaking havoc on the city's electrical grid, robbing rich bastards like Izaya of their fancy-schmancy central heat.

As far as Shizuo was concerned, the flea had had it coming. Izaya kept a grand total of two blankets in his entire loft, and even those were the thin, color-coordinated kind that couldn't warm a tropical beach on a summer's day.

Shizuo glowered down at Izaya. "I should kick your skinny little ass into next fucking Friday for asking me to come out this late just 'cause you'd have been cold—"

Izaya clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Smoking, fighting, and cursing, Shizu-chan? You'll be nothing but a bad influence if we ever have children."

Shizuo's eyes went wide at the implications of that statement, and he spluttered gape-mouthed through the rest of his comeback.

Wait. What?!

Freaking cold weather must have zapped my brain cells.

Izaya chuckled at the look of utter bewilderment on Shizuo's face. He moved aside to allow Shizuo entry, but the blond-haired man stood stubbornly rooted to the spot, his brain almost visibly overheating. Izaya rolled his eyes, grabbed hold of Shizuo's knit snowflake scarf, and hauled him and his giant bundle of blankets over the threshold.

Once inside, Shizuo let the bundle fall to the floor, where it landed with a heavy whump. Just as he leaned down to remove his boots, however— "Shit! It's even colder in here than it is outside!" He yelped and immediately retreated, leaving the blankets behind and backpedaling for the door. "Later, flea. I can freeze my balls off well enough at home. Alone. Where I can suffer in peace and quiet."

Izaya dove between Shizuo and the doorframe. His movements were slightly clumsy, hindered by all the bulky clothing he wore, and Shizuo noticed that the flea's trademark grin looked more strained than usual.

"Come on, Shizu-chan. You don't really want to go home," Izaya hedged. "The power may be out, but the water heater's still working, and I just happen to have some of that Meiji cocoa mix you like so much." Izaya tugged more insistently on Shizuo's scarf. "Plus, it'd be a shame to let all that excess body heat of yours go to waste, right?"

Shizuo had stopped listening at "cocoa". He narrowed his eyes at Izaya, still understandably skeptical. "Do you have any of those little marshmallows…?"

"You're in luck!" Izaya beamed up at him, ready and waiting with more bait for Shizuo's sweet tooth. "I bought some the other day. You can have as many as you want. I'll pass, though. Have you ever read the nutritional facts on the back of the bag? Just five marshmallows are packed with as much sugar as a—"

"Don't ruin it," Shizuo interrupted. He took off his hat and ran a weary hand through tousled hair. "It's gonna be a long night."

Izaya pecked a kiss on Shizuo's cheek and closed the door behind them.

. . . . .

A/N: It has now become part of my head!canon that Shizuo's mother is an obsessive quilter who showers Shizuo and Kasuka in her pet projects. As a result, Shizuo will make Izaya learn to appreciate the fine art of the quilt whether the flea likes it or not.