Disclaimer: Durarara!and its characters belong to Ryogo Narita.

Warnings: Time Travel AU with child!Izaya. Heed ye OOC warning and thy miserable attempt at fluff.

Oh, and first attempt at Shizaya. Yeah.

A/N: This was written for ixerliya-chan's request on Tumblr. I also used the "30 days of writing (Odd Words)" prompt to help me through it. I'll be dishing this out in chapters to build suspense (ehemfishforreviewsehem) but I have the whole thing sealed and done so let's get this show on the road!

Time Tells

Space

Maybe aliens were real. And they have this contraption that takes people back in time. Or maybe there really is a parallel space. And he got thrown into it when that bus hit him. Or maybe he just hit his head harder than what he normally can deal with and his mind went all looney.

There's just no simple explanation why there's a five year-old Izaya in front of him while he's still in his mid-twenties.

"Let's do this again," Shizuo grunts. The boy in front of him simply stares. "You're Orihara Izaya." Nod. "You're five." Another nod. "You said you found me unconscious on 60th street." Yet another nod. "And you're really five?"

At this point, the kid—Izaya, he reminds himself—looks at him with an expression he's all too familiar with but on an older face. The look that says he thinks of him as an idiot.

This was Izaya, all right.

What did he get his self into now?

Elbow

It's almost a week now since Shizuo arrived in this… time. For some twisted reason, he's been staying at Izaya's place. Since he was technically in the past, Kururi and Mairu haven't been born yet and Izaya is mostly alone. He's been here for a while and he's yet to meet his parents. Come to think of it, he's never met Izaya's parents even back in high school. Or is it will never meet in high school? Does this mean that the past is now in the future or is it the present?

Shizuo sighs and lights his nth stick. This whole time thing is too complicated for him. Not to mention he's currently living with his arch enemy. Although he'd have to admit things weren't what he expected them to be.

As a kid, Izaya is unnaturally quiet. He rarely speaks, distances his self from the other kids in his kindergarten class, and acts independently for his age. He still knows how to get on Shizuo's nerves though. Like that time when the brat gave him expired milk on purpose. Or when he hid Shizuo's clothes while he was taking a bath (he hid them in the mailbox outside, for fuck's sake). He still has that same, piercing eyes that Shizuo loathed—how can someone's stare be so sharp they can stab you by a glare alone?

Oh, and that smirk? Yeah, Izaya already had that down this early in life.

"This place stinks now." A small elbow lands on the top of his head as Izaya comes up behind him. "You stink."

A vein pops in his temple but Shizuo simply grits his teeth. He shoves the offending limb away and turns to stare upside down at the kid on the bed. "Trust me. No one'll stink more than you'll do in a couple of years."

Siren

It's too loud. Can't they turn that freaking siren off? There's no obvious emergency left here. Oh, wait. The driver's still stuck in his seat with the steering wheel compressing his lungs. Oops.

Shizuo is tapping his foot restlessly as the paramedics and firefighters rushed around the wreckage. It was insane, he knew, but he had this thought this morning that perhaps, if he gets hit by another bus, he can get back to whatever space or time he actually belongs to. And the result was all this wreck. The official story is that the driver swerved when he didn't notice Shizuo crossing the street, even though Shizuo deliberately stepped out at the last minute. He got off with a few scrapes while the bus' front was completely totaled. Nice to know that he was still as indestructible as before, but the fact remains he's still stuck here. Wherever here is.

I need a smoke. The pack he kept in his breast pocket slipped out and got trampled on during the accident. Might as well go…? Shizuo gets up to leave while the attention's not on him but he catches sight of the boy standing at the edge of the crowd before running off.

Izaya?

He tries not to think of how miserable the boy looked as those blood red eyes bore onto him.

Icy

He's no good at this, Shizuo admits. Kasuka was better at keeping his calm and babysitting. Shizuo never did this before due to obvious reasons. And Izaya was testing that reason right now.

"Look, kid," he starts. Izaya pays him no attention and continues to angrily scribble on his drawing board. Shizuo figures his kindergarten teacher should be concerned with Izaya drawing dark blots using just red and black crayons. "I don't even know if you'll understand what I'm saying but," he scratches the back of his head, clearly annoyed that he had to explain himself to Izaya of all people, "I'm not from around here, okay? This is all just fu— messed up. I have to go back and I'm trying to—"

Shizuo almost bites his tongue when the boy turns around to face him. Oh.

"You're just like the rest of them," the boy says in a hushed tone. "You just leave me behind."

Shizuo has heard the worst from those lips, but he's never heard anything as icy as the words he just did.

Curl

He's already halfway through the new pack when Shizuo decides enough is enough.

Izaya, after exhausting himself on the drawing board, had climbed into bed at four in the afternoon and stayed curled under the covers. The kid still is and for all the times Shizuo wished the full-grown Izaya would have left him alone, he finds himself yanking the sheets off of the younger version unable to leave him alone. Izaya glares back at him with a "Hey!" and pouts.

Shizuo tries not to think that a pout looks cute on him. No. Not at all. Especially with his cheeks puffed out and he's obviously holding back tears.

"I knew you were a crybaby," he says with a deadpan expression.

The kid throws a pillow at him. "I am not!"

Apple

"What are you doing?"

"Baking."

"What are you baking?"

"Pie."

"What pie?"

Shizuo narrows his eyes at the kid perched on the kitchen counter, tries to decide if this was another of Izaya's antics, contemplates if he's being annoying about it, then decides that yes, he is. He taps the whisk on the edge of the bowl that held three pounds of apples.

Izaya blinks. "Why?"

The grown man doesn't answer at first because there's no way in hell is he going to tell Izaya he's baking the pie for him since he felt guilty about making a kid cry. "I'm hungry."

"There's obento in the fridge."

Shizuo opens said fridge to put the dough in and sees the packed meals. The frown on his face was enough to have Izaya scoot over the counter towards him and poke the space between his eyebrows. He slaps the offending finger away. "You shouldn't be eating these."

"Why not?"

"Because you're little and you need to eat proper food." He pauses after a thought. "Maybe this is why you grow up to be so skinny."

"I'm not skinny," Izaya pouts at him. Shizuo doesn't resist the urge and hefts him up by the back of his collar, to which Izaya trashes around and shouts, "Hey! Put me down!" Shizuo puts him down with a smirk.

"Pretty skinny to me."

Pink

To Shizuo's relief, the pie turned out all right. If you could call a burnt, half-baked pie 'all right'.

Who was he kidding? Izaya already spent the last fifteen minutes on the kitchen floor, howling in laughter. Shizuo is sorely tempted to start kicking him just to shut him up but then he remembers that this was a child and contrary to popular belief, he's not that much of a monster that he'll start hurting children.

Shizuo waits for the laughter to die down (which takes another ten minutes), before Izaya picks himself off the floor and settles down the seat next to him, looking like he ran a mile. To his surprise, Izaya bends down just enough to take two plates from the storage underneath the table, a pair of forks, and a pie knife.

"What are you…?"

The kid proceeds to cut a slice from the failed pie, puts a piece in his mouth, freezes with a grimace, before swallowing it whole.

"…are you trying to kill yourself?"

Izaya shakes his head and grins up at Shizuo. "No one's made me pie before. It's not too bad." He tilts his head, confused, when Shizuo suddenly chokes and turns his back on him, the tips of his ears all pink.