Chapter 1: Once Upon a Rooftop
Orihara Izaya; Highly revered information broker, self-proclaimed lover of all humans and suicide promotion enthusiast, loved rooftops.
He always had, from a very young age; the brunette had always found solace high above the ground, peace no other place on the earth could ever give him, other than a lowly rooftop.
He loved the sense of power that came with being so far above the living world. He loved the sense of security he felt at the knowledge that all of his beloved humans slept soundly below his feet, absorbed in their own dreams, unawares of the world around them. He loved the way the vehicles below, with their brightly lit head lights, looked like tiny insects scuttling around aimlessly, that of which he could crush with just the barest amount of pressure of his thumb if the urge so took him.
Izaya adored it all.
The informant believed that what he felt, when high up in the Ikebukuro sky line, was what it must feel like to walk among the Gods. To be able to watch over each and every human being from above their oblivious little heads; to be able to scrutinise from afar without the awareness of the victim.
That was true power.
And Izaya craved it.
After his failure to manipulate the Dullahan into playing fool in his little battle of wits, Izaya had taken to climbing the flights of stairs belonging to the tallest buildings in Ikebukuro and Shibuya almost every night without fail.
Some ignorant beings may say that it was insanity that drove him to the rooftops whenever the stars and moon appeared but Izaya's reasoning was that if the Irish fairy was not willing to grant him his well-deserved God status then he would just have to wait it out, until a real deity, a real being of power, spied him and saw his true potential as a guardian of the human race.
But until that time, Izaya would wait.
A small burst of giggles erupted from the brunette's chest as he raised his right arm over his head, index finger waving about in the air pointlessly as he pretended to connect the twinkling stars in the night sky.
"All these thoughts about Gods and Deities," Izaya spoke quietly to himself, shaking his head slowly from side to side, his giggling coming to an abrupt end. "You'd never believe I was an Atheist."
The informant leaned precariously over the railings that lined the very edges of the rooftops, feet planted on the lowest rung of the metal barrier, his scarlet stare trained down at the darkness of the alley-way that ran along the sides of the office building he currently resided on.
He squinted slightly, trying, in vain, to see past the darkness of the night, to where, he knew, covering the filthy ground of the alley, were an assortment of blood smatterings and broken suitcases.
It had been a good couple of weeks for Izaya and his hobby.
With no war to take up the vast majority of his concentration, Izaya had had a lot more of his time and effort to give to the suicidal minority of Tokyo.
Izaya and his unethical past time of helping young people meet their maker; had been rather busy. What with the end of the war and thus, the end of many large gangs, a great number of gang members no longer felt any worth in life and had turned to the bustling world of online suicide forums, where Izaya, or rather, Nakura-san lay in wait.
Izaya had been responsible… no, not responsible, but a factor, in the increase in the number of people taking their own lives in Ikebukuro and Shibuya over those past few months.
But, who was he to deny them of what they wanted?
He did love them after all.
Izaya laughed serenely and smiled quietly to himself as he drew his upper body back up straight, raising his head to stare up at the eerily bright and full moon.
Most people would call Izaya hedonistic and, he would have to agree with them. He was just, trying to enjoy life as much as humanly possible before he, too, bit the metaphorical dust, so to speak.
What was the harm in that?
Every man, woman and child held a primal desire, however hidden or prominent, to pursue pleasure for themselves.
After all, contrary to popular belief, Izaya was only human himself.
And it was that need to seek out pleasure and danger which caused Izaya to climb the final few bars of the railing, spreading his arms out wide, as he balanced precariously on the top most rung, taking a few careful steps along the metal barrier.
If Izaya had been thinking straight at that moment in time, he would have realised how unbelievably irresponsible he was being in his current condition, as, although Izaya believed himself to be immune to illness, several months of relentless insomnia affected even the most head strong of people.
It wasn't that Izaya had been evading a good night's sleep on purpose for the last however many months it had been, it was just, whenever Izaya's head hit his pillow, and his ruby eyes closed, his ability to find sleep ran away from him into the night, leaving him wide awake and increasingly restless.
Another bout of hysterical giggles bubbled up from deep within Izaya's chest as he swayed dangerously on the metal rail, the wind running its icy fingers across his reddened cheeks and through his unkempt hair.
"I wonder what Shizu-chan would say if he saw me up here?" Izaya glanced down at the fall below his feet, speaking to no one in particular, corner of his mouth twitching upwards, forming a somewhat deranged half smile.
Heiwajima Shizuo.
The strongest and most feared human being in all of Ikebukuro.
Or so, that's what the residents said.
But Izaya knew better than to believe this, as, how could Heiwajima Shizuo, blonde bartender uniform clad scourge of Ikebukuro, who possessed the world's most terrible temper and a personality to match, be Ikebukuro's strongest human being when he wasn't even human at all?
Now, Izaya did not doubt Shizuo's unnatural strength, not in the least, as the informant had seen first-hand the destruction that could be caused by the blonde menace and had been on the receiving end of his rages many times throughout his life.
What Izaya doubted was Shizuo's humanity.
As humans were supposed to be fragile and weak, easily broken like the finest china plate, in need of a protector to watch over them, to keep them safe and out of harms ever eager grasp.
But Shizu-chan was different.
Shizu-chan could take on a whole gang of armed men on his own and come away virtually unscathed, he could uproot street signs and trees and even the odd small house or vehicle when the occasion so called for it and most worryingly, Izaya could never, no matter how hard he tried, predict what the body guard would do next.
And this scared Izaya, even though he would never ever dare admit that out loud.
Shizu-chan was as inhuman as any ancient possessed sword or headless horse rider, and yet, it was only the informant who could see this.
Shizu-chan was a monster.
That was the only logical reasoning Izaya could think of to explain his strength, his unpredictability and his aptitude to be so loathsome, for surely, if Shizu-chan was indeed human, Izaya would have felt the very same way he did for him as he did the whole human race.
But he didn't.
What he felt for Shizuo was different, and he hated it.
Hello everyone! This is Tufty here and thus commences the start of Bomb in a Birdcage! This story has been a work on hold for the past... two or so years just as I got into Durarara! and thus this beautiful pairing. So this chapter, which is more of an prologue, is just a warmer before the heavy stuff starts, as if this isn't heavy already!
This is my first ever uploaded fanfiction so please be nice and leave a comment about what you thought of the introduction-y-thingy and feel free to mail me (I NEED THE ENCOURAGEMENTasmywritingsuck s)
I hope you have enjoyed the first installment of Bomb in a Birdcage, I will try to update regularly!
Also, if there is any terminology or anything that you don't understand in the bulk of the text, please feel free to ask me. I am British you see and very aware that terminologies and meanings are very different world wide!
I hope you enjoy! Please review, favourite, anything!
Enjoy.