Length: Multi-chaptered
Ship(s): Shizuo/Izaya
Tags/Warnings: Multiple Universes, Jealousy, Envy, Angst, Slow-Burn, -ish?, Supernatural Elements (?), Other Universes
Author's Note: This story has and always will be, though I didn't always know it, for the people we never understand enough to keep.
"It's too late to move back, yet too early to move on."
Izaya supposes that there are worse ways to pass the time.
However right now, sitting across the couch with Itsuki pointedly ignoring him, he thinks he has never felt so decidedly sour. Of course, there were definitely worse ways to pass the time. He can think of so many just off the top of his head - waterboarding, hospitals, prison. This was nothing compared to all those. But maybe that was the issue, people needed distractions or else they fell easily into despair. Pascal provided the simple theory: divertissement provided the necessary stimulation to add a touch of Bonheur to one's inner life, if only to conceal the bleak inner realities of existence and mortality.
But maybe he was just being pessimistic. He found himself more caught up in these things as of late.
Too often, he finds himself worried about these situations. Progressively, they've started developing their own fair share of conflicts before so this wasn't anything new, but if that were the case, why did he feel so anxious? Apparently, the answers were inscribed in his ceiling or something, if the amount of time he has spent staring at it is any indication for results.
Sighing, Izaya crosses his arms with shut eyes. Being closed-off is his main methods of handling personal matters. Orihara Izaya has always known how to detach himself from situations if the need arises - or if it's just too much to handle, it seems. Not that he's all that proud of it anymore.
He had been insensitive - he knows it. Prior to this, Itsuki had come shuffling home with bags under his eyes, looking ten years too early for it. Then again, izaya himself had often worn that similar look near that tender age, when he was basically left with two younger sisters to look after and not a hint of what to do. But other than that, most of his childhood had been breezy, if forgettable. What really surprised him about his current situation, was when this little brunette decided he could be sneaky and quietly placed a crinkled but formal-looking letter on the coffee table before edging away.
"Stay." And he stilled immediately.
Getting off from his working station, Izaya gently handled the letter before swivelling around his chair so that Itsuki would not see him rubbing his fingers against his aching temple, slow and methodically. Another situation at school, another meeting. It really has been piling up the past few weeks. The first few times, Izaya has let it slide unquestioned. It's normal, these things he has observed so commonplace that it is forgettable, really. He figured that sometimes those problems are something that kids had to work through by themselves, coddling was no use in the long run But there comes a time where these situations carry on for far too long and could not be ignored any longer.
"Before I open this," his voice cuts sharp and thin through the clouding tension in the room. All as he waves the envelope in his left hand, pivoted from a sharp edge. "Why don't you consider explaining yourself first."
He's had experience with these sorts of warning letters before and the best thing he has learnt was that it was better to let the kids articulate themselves first. Mairu, in particular, was prone to bouts of behavioural issues and spontaneous phone calls, even though he had never bothered actually attending to those before. And it wasn't like their parents were concerned enough to fly into Japan just to check-in.
The first and only time he has went was because Kururi had really begged him to. All in all, he had found it a rather humbling experience.
"I don't wanna go to school anymore." Over the years, Itsuki had grown increasingly more similar to a violent-tempered brute he once and still knew, all whilst possessing a self-assured confidence that Izaya's supposed he himself has carried all throughout their later years in life. A combination that they've always been wary about before, but has now started to grate on even him.
"And why would you want to?"
"I just want to do my own thing." The real problem was that his 'own thing' was never concrete, and while Izaya appreciated variety, he also appreciated logic.
When he was younger, Itsuki went from wanting to be a zookeeper, to a plastic surgeon and then a bookstore owner. Currently he was interested in the field of marine biology. Izaya admits, he's greatly annoyed by this thought process - it was just too odd! How did any of them even link together?
"Darling, you know I love you. If I decided to kill you and bury the body no one would ever know. So go back to doing your work, you're not dropping out of school."
"Why? Why can't I just be home-schooled instead! It could be your birthday present to me! I know that you always have a hard time choosing anyway. I know you still don't really have an idea of what to - "
"I have more important things to do," Izaya snaps, not appreciating being read by even his child yet conflictingly feeling a swell of pride. "and the entire purpose of the school is to educate you on things that your parents don't really have time for. You're the one who's always acting like a brat that it's even getting too much for me." He hisses.
"You're the one who tells me to burn my homework!" Itsuki's voice rises, and it's almost cute because he's still at the age where his voice is fluctuating in varying degrees, except the assertion in his tone is too strong to miss out on.
"That was a joke." Izaya stresses. Well, partly. It was only because he's never really needed to complete homework, but he's never set them on fire either.
The other people there suck anyway, I'm not -" his faced scrunched up in shame, and it is here where Izaya starts to unravel what this whole thing is really about. "I'm not like you, okay, people aren't fun to me and it's grating to be around some of them."
"Well, that's not exactly your choice to make."
Itsuki's face falls, and Izaya feels like the worst that he has always heard everyone referring to him as. Only this time, it did matter. How did he ever manage to have unconditional love of this young boy sometimes he doesn't know, and sometimes he didn't exactly know how to get it back either.
Really, Izaya may be a carefree individual but how was any parent supposed to react to this, realistically? Shizuo would have probably been able to handle it better, been more understanding - in the sense that he had experienced these things before and came out better. Sadly, he was out with his old work friends at Asakusa. Tom-san had moved there when he settled down to some woman, and as far as he knew Varona was still working for the underground, though at least Shizuo was aware of it now.
Izaya ponders this for so long that he does not notice that the day has faded to evening. Absently, he notes a two small calls of 'I'm home' at different timings from the girls but it was only until he felt the absence of warm sunlight and the cool breeze of the night that he blinked out of his stupor. It seems that Itsuki has left a while ago. Well, no matter, Izaya would settle just what was wrong at his school, and this would all blow over by the next day. Things always do.
Silently cursing himself for his continued indifference, he heads to his room. On the way, he looks out the same, wide windows that he has known for years, at all the cars retreating from the light. He imagines what they would look like even later at night, just before twilight - his favourite time - with their neon headlights leaving luminescent, almost otherworldly, trails behind. Later in the room, he envisions it. However he knows, when he closes his eyes, that those lights still remain in front of him, and that when he tries to reach out his hands, they touch nothing, and he is left with the same feeling lingering in his chest.
"I see you're still doing those stretches."
Shizuo made the most endearingly redundant comments when he didn't need to. Izaya lazily opens his eyes, arms still outstretched at nothing above him. He faces Shizuo with a half-lidded look that he knows still mildly annoys this other, and turns his body the opposite way on the bed.
Shizuo closes the door gently, making the barest of sounds. And he used to be such a loud man, too. But maybe his theory on names reflecting one's personality could still hold some water.
He feels the side of the bed sinking with Shizuo's added weight and a hand suddenly appears at his side, caressing his waist soothingly.
"What's wrong?"
Ah, what powerful intuition. Or perhaps he has gotten too soft - he was already forty-eight and still yearned desperately to be twenty-five again. Was this what Shizuo felt all those years ago, that impending sense of mortality and melancholy? Probably not, honestly. While the threat of mortality was still there and still feared, Izaya has learnt, years ago and very painfully so, that his death was inevitable and has learnt to accept it. Furthermore, there have never been any accomplishments that he was particularly mourning over, he wasn't prone to self-confidence issues except concerning very few people. So what was it? Not just why did he yearn for the past but what exactly did he yearn for? Of course, the irony of him being obsessed with the past is not lost on him, for it may as well be his God for how much it dictated his actions now.
"He's mad at me." Izaya sighs, trying to make it sound less dreadful than it actually is. He doesn't hold me in the same high regard as he used to anymore.
"Who - Suki?"
"I wasn't aware that we had any other 'he's' unless you're cheating on me - Shizu-chan! How could you destroy my maiden heart like that?" bleats Izaya, and the tears he has expertly drawn up are nothing more than crocodile, but the expression he's wearing is still convincing enough to kick Shizuo right where it hurts.
"Wha - no, shut up. You know I wouldn't." To any outsider, the apparent nervousness in Shizuo would have been a cause for alarm, but really, it was just that Shizuo was too soft for his own good sometimes.
"I know, I know. You get really shocked when I bring these things up though, I wouldn't mind watching your reactions forever. It's like you're hearing it for the first time every time."
And with that, Shizuo has rolled his eyes and stopped feeling worried. "It's not like I don't know what cheating is, I just, don't want to associate it with any part of us."
"You used to think differently about me." Izaya recalls, sadly.
"I know," Oh, he's ashamed. "And I'm still sorry for that but it's all in the past. Let's just get back to what we were talking about 'kay?"
"Yes sir!" suddenly, Izaya's eyes cloud over in darkness and he smirks next to Shizuo's ear. "Or would you rather I call you Daddy?"
Shizuo shoves Izaya off then, but still keeps a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him. "I know what you're trying to do and it's not working. Don't change the subject, what really happened that's got you this fu - uh, ticked off?"
Humming, Izaya drops his act but never loses that playful flair in his actions.
"Shizu-chan, what kind of parent do you think I am?"
Shizuo pondered this for a while.
"I think...you're not bad with kids, actually. Even back then with Akane, even if you were manipulating her, she actually really liked you, even if she called you creepy. And when it comes to our own children, you've been, really understanding actually. When we first started out, I wasn't sure if you were just trying to appease me or something, but then I saw that, Izaya, you are really trying." He smiles, but it doesn't exactly reassure him.
"But there is a catch isn't there?"
"Flea, this is you we're talking about. Yeah, there is gonna be a catch. Even if you try to be a bit distant sometimes, it's like you can't help but seep into everyone's lives all the time. And it's really apparent with those three."
"You are just kind of, withdrawn? Yeah, I think that's the word."
"What do you mean?" Izaya groans, knowing exactly what Shizuo meant.
"I feel like you just don't know how to talk to them that well when it comes to certain emotions. You can clearly understand what they feel in extreme situations, but when it comes to normal problems it's like you can't connect. At the same time, you're also kind of pervasive, it's like you're imbedded in all of them them in some , I'm not exactly happy about Suki's situation at school either, but I do, understand it."
"Oh I know you do. How could you not? Especially since I was the one who put you through all of it, just like how I'm doing the same to our child it seems. I suppose some things just never change." Izaya spat, sounding flat and hard.
"Izaya..." A heavy concerned gaze peeks through Shizuo's bangs, and all of a sudden Izaya feels worse.
"Sometimes I still get confused with this look of yours." Izaya mentions sadly, running his hands through bronzed locks instead of that tacky but fitting yellow he used to have. It seemed to symbolise the closing of a chapter in his life he wasn't sure he wanted complete yet.
"It's been three years, Izaya. And I mean, it's my natural look." He says, grabbing his hair as if surprised that it is. Izaya still believes that his natural look will always be bottle blonde and dangerous.
"Yes, yes, but these things take time. I think it just reminds me of my own hair - I've managed to keep myself looking relatively young all this time, but there's only so much a human can do."
"Screw all that, I can't wait to see you get proper wrinkles up your forehead and have your cheeks sag a bit more. That'll be cute." Shizuo says, scarily earnest, as he kisses said cheeks. How he managed to make his aging sound appealing Izaya really did not know. Shizuo himself has aged well, the time tracing his face makes him look robust instead of weary, adding an added layer of maturity to his features he's never quite been able to live up to. But he has always been timeless, like an old soul in a young body.
"Shizu-chan! That is the most terrifying thing you have ever said. No way! I absolutely must not!" He shrieked only half-jokingly. Half. If he was being entirely honest, his looks were never something he paid excessive attention to, only noting it for how it drew others to trust him and surround him. Say anything about Orihara Izaya but let it be known that he has never been overly interested in himself; only ever others.
Shizuo merely hummed some old tune in response, cradling Izaya as he did so.
"Ugh, this is getting creepy. You know, you're always thinking about the weirdest things Shizu-chan, I can't follow your knowledge at all." Izaya said and sat up. "But it's sweet, I think. You're so caring it almost hurts. I used to think that you didn't deserve anyone but now I know it is the other way around. Who could deserve you? I feel a bit guilty."
"Guilty?" Shizuo was startled by this revelation.
"Oh, it's nothing." Izaya hummed, meaning that it was clearly something. "Sometimes I feel like, I'm keeping you all to myself, and you could find some homey woman who could match you, but no one could, nobody bloody deserves you." His voice like an echo of a siren, or some other fairyland, all together encapsulating a deep sense of eeriness whilst still being serene.
"...does that count as a swear?" Shizuo asks nervously, not really wanting to continue down this dangerous line of thinking. And Izaya giggles louder, clambering into Shizuo's lap as he snuggles more into his hair.
Izaya had always had this idea that Shizuo would abandon him - which was ironic, since he had always been the one running away. Unfortunately, it felt as if the rest of the family had firmly inherited this trait as well. It was like they had all made some non-existent connection between Izaya's perceived femininity and Shizuo's unchecked aggression and was under the impression that he was simply girl-deprived. Well, his kids were all a bit paranoid and weird, he supposes. As the years went by, they slowly grew out of that perception. Izaya, however, still had the suspicion that Shizuo would grow tired of putting up with him, but he was Izaya, and he could usually talk himself out of it soon enough.
He wondered how much longer it would take before Izaya believed that he would never leave him. He pictured them thirty years later, in their late seventies, old and wiry like how Simon seemed to look these days, with Izaya still clinging tight an arm's length away. Once, he told Izaya about this after he had (still) proclaimed to be 'forever 21', (he could at least pass off for early thirties) and he had laughed, though Shizuo had meant it very seriously.
Shizuo felt it important that he said something to calm Izaya's growing unrest in return, but he really could not find the words to say. It sometimes felt as though words eluded him, as if they were too afraid to be in his grasp as well. He rubbed circles around Izaya's waist for comfort instead - he found himself doing that a lot.
Leaning upwards, he kissed Izaya hard and rough and altogether sweet at the same time. One of those kisses that held everything he needed to say over.
Izaya let out a soft sigh, Shizuo took that as Izaya urging him to continue. Nudging his way down his neck, then his collar, Shizuo then finds his favourite spot on Izaya's chest - the area right over his heart. Shizuo's favourite neutral position in the morning was lying half-awake with his head shielding this spot. He's recounted this to Izaya before, and Izaya responded by saying he comes up with a new favourite spot every week or so.
"Last week you said it was behind my ears, and the week before it was my temple - don't get Alzheimer's on me now."
"Really? Hm."
"I think I'm just too irresistible for you. You just want everything from me, isn't that right?" He teases, but there's a crack, a slight uncertainty there that isn't quite convinced.
Shizuo opens his mouth to breathe against the spot, he can feel Izaya shuddering above him as he does. Then, he bites down on it, causing Izaya to flush and dig his hands into his brown mane, pulling the pain away. When he's done, he licks his lips and leans back. There's a large, bright red mark left there, marking him for the time being. It looked like a calling, he thought, a proof of a sensitive heart beneath that cold, pale skin.
"From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty's rose might never die." Izaya's voice is soft and murmurous after being so thoroughly taken apart. "One on another's neck do witness bear, that every tongue say beauty should look so."
"Where's this one from?"
"Oh, here and there - they're from sonnets. One was about a dark lady, and another, a young, darling boy."
"Cool. Sounds romantic."
"Which part, though?"
"The (earlier/later) part. Wouldn't it make sense? If it's about the lady."
"Now isn't that interesting. Actually, that part was about the young boy, 'Fair Youth', was the series. I suppose then, you fall in line with what most people would consider romantic, considering those sonnets are considered to be more flattering. I myself rather find the ones about that elusive mistress to be more amorous in its flirtations. 'All this the world well knows yet none knows well,/To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.'"
"No way that's more romantic."
"We'll just agree to disagree then." Izaya shrugs.
Over the years Izaya found himself switching from philosopher to playwrights to ideologists and so on. He's always liked taking in diverse forms of knowledge, but this was different than his average information gathering. And so, from the great minds of Wilde and Poe, to Kant and Wittgenstein, Marx and Adam Smith, Dōgen Zenji and a few others he traversed. They were mostly filled with odd western and occasionally middle-eastern names that held no meaning in Shizuo's world. He thinks that Izaya is trying to search for something - some understanding or all-encompassing truth, for some reason.
"Why do you do that?" He once questioned when Izaya was pouring over Nietzsche with great fervour. Beside that pile was his usual workload along with report cards from school and the the tax papers that Shizuo was almost 99% certain he evaded half the time. And underneath that was Allan Poe, with sounds of hearts bursting through the floorboards.
"Broadening my worldview." He said as if that was all he needed to explain himself. That was the only context Shizuo was given before his mind wandered away again, leaving him just as confused as when he asked.
Shizuo recalls that book, from a few years ago. Ever since they came back from that one vacation he's asked to borrow the Japanese version from Hana and occasionally comes back to it. He leaves the English with her to help her study. Sometimes, if a part interests him enough, he leaves sticky notes in there with his thoughts. Most adorably, the next time he opens it, either Hana or Haru will have commented on his own thoughts, leading to a situation where they'll have small conversations with each other at different points in time.
He has sort of taken whatever it said as a learning experience of sorts, even to the point where he's tried doing those Zen thinking things to see if they'd work, though they felt too embarrassing for him to really continue with wholeheartedly. It has given Shizuo a newfound liking of books beyond detective noirs and those 'coming-of-age' ones into other stuff, like contemporary novels and romances. Izaya says they're called 'bildungsroman', but to Shizuo that sounded like too ugly and complicated of a term to associate. Regardless, it has led him to pick up a bit of Murakami and Ozeki over the years. Maybe it was like that with Izaya, just more extreme.
Recently, Izaya himself has grown obsessed over Shakespeare. It was unexpected on Shizuo's end, since Izaya never struck him as the type who would like reading about the times of old. It was nothing he hadn't read before, Izaya had said when asked, but the words seemed to possess a newfound tangibility to him. Of course, Oscar Wilde would forever be up there at the very top, but he could not deny the certain spark of feeling he got from those plays, right down to the man's very last words.
"Cursed be he that moves my bones."
"England's national poet indeed." He had mused.
He's been reading the plays to Itsuki or Haru if they wanted to hear it. Sometimes, Shizuo would sit in too, but he wasn't one for understanding these complicated ideas, nor did he really care.
"Well fuck it," Shizuo says when he's done thinking. Izaya's face and chest was still red from earlier, his eyes possessing only the sharpest slit of red leaking through. "we always disagree anyway."
"I'll get the money from your wallet tomorrow." Izaya says, sounding like he's expired all his needs for talking today. "
"And just so you remember, it was those disagreements that led to our severely messed up history." Shizuo flinches at the memories. There were very little good in them, during the time where they were both at their worsts selves.
Izaya sometimes wondered if Shizuo truly loved him, or if he only loved the peace that accompanied a lack of fighting and riots that came with making amends not only with yourself, but with the people surrounding you.
Will we ever be able to truly move beyond our pasts, I wonder? Or will the deed stay chronicled in our hells. He thought, but immediately brushed it away. It was times like these were he remembered how dangerous it was to obsess over the past, for what only mattered was the present and future.
Still, a part of Izaya wishes he could disappear as easily as he used to. Guilt was an emotion he feels he could never get used to having but needing to confront every day. Uncharacteristically, he silently prays his problems away. He knows that it won't be answered, because there was no such thing as a God.
And so, they fall asleep that night like that, the two individuals wrapped up in their own little minds whilst their bodies were tangled together.
...
"IIIIIIIZZAAAAYAAAAAA-KUUUUN! COME BACK HERE SO I CAN SMASH YOUR FUCKING FACE IN!" It was at that moment that the residents of Ikebukuro heard the breaking and bending of metal being crushed against a brick wall, whilst the intended target flitted away, expertly sending back a series of blades at his attacker.
Ah, how had he gotten caught in this situation again? Not that he particularly minded being chased around sometimes (it was, after all, a show of his superior abilities against a monster's, securing his status a step ahead of Shizuo's and any other threats in this city), but it was getting on his nerves as well. He had only intended to come here for business today and slip away quickly like he did most days, but a wild Shizu-chan just had to appear and chase away one of his more unique clients.
Pity, this one was new. A man who had worked and backstabbed his way into power, power which often blindsides one's person. Izaya wanted to watch this one unfold slowly, with his desires laid bare to the world and have him acknowledge his humanity. That would have been lovely.
It was only when Izaya sidesteps into a narrow alleyway and ducks into one of the doors where he finally loses Shizuo amongst the chaos. He is slightly sweaty and exhausted, but the thrum in his veins that occurs whenever one of these chases happens is real, with excitement coursing through his blood.
After pacing his breath into something more even and controlled, he dials the client back. If he was lucky, he would be able to convince him to carry out their deal. Unfortunately, said man was extremely pissed and decided it was in his best interest to complain nonstop, which was amusing in itself, but less so when he declined ever working with Izaya. He could have probably made up some story to the clientele if he really wanted to keep working with him (after all, he thinks he could have had an interesting direction for this one if he played his cards right), that is, if the thought of being perceived as being lower the man and pitied didn't revolt him to the core.
Instead, he politely ended the conversation and resolved to expose his nefarious dealings later. Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Izaya happily skipped and whistled away back to his apartment. Another lovely day passing by.
…
Shizuo just wishes Izaya would be gone.
"DiediediediediediediediedieDIE - wish that fucking flea was dead in a ditch and wish he would just be gone - " Shizuo muttered guturally, voice like a rising storm. Remembering how he had immediately caught sight of Izaya's smug face as he hopped away to make his shitty living, his eyes darkened over dangerously. How many times has it been already that he has failed in his one desire to see Izaya's cold body dead and battered? To finally give that asshole a fraction of the medicine that he deserves and pummel his body to death. Was that really too much to ask for?!
He hadn't realised his fists were breaking through sandy, coarse brick walls until it was too late to realise. Shizuo made a disapproving noise at the back of his throat and shook his still-unscathed fist of the sharp rocks and rubble.
"If he would just disappear, then everything would be peaceful."
The gentle serration of the winds seemed to flow in agreement.
...
He is edging and floating, like a fallen leaf during autumn, carried on by the will of an outsider force that is far beyond his control.
He blinks his eyes open with much difficulty, the lids feeling as though they weighed like stones. Looking around, everything seems hazy, distorted, nebulous, unstructured and messy. Unrecognisable shapes are whirling past him, contradictorily quickly but muddy and slow all the same with the splashes of otherworldly oranges and purples and blues and more swirling into a vortex. It feels as though he's moving through glass but walking on air.
Is this what death feels like? He has always wondered what the process towards eternal sleep was like, but he hated dwelling on it for too long. He only wished to experience the feeling to satisfy his curiosity, and come back out knowing with a hundred percent certainty how much better it was to be alive.
The flotsam and jetsam of dead hours and expanses were aimlessly airing by, all of a sudden, he's thrust into a spiral of epileptic colours and gamma-bright flashes of white.
He's heard countless stories of people dying in their sleep, Death, ever the stealthy and sly mistress - sneaking in through the windows, under the bed, beneath the cracks of the floorboards - in the middle of those dark, dark nights, to smuggle away precious human lives. In ancient Greece, people did believe Death was the twin to Sleep - another reason why he disliked wasting his time with it. Was he undergoing some form of Sudden Death Epilepsy? Cardiac Arrhythmia?
Everything quickens, shooting past him in unnaturally high speeds, until he feels that his body is going to hit a brick wall, about to stop abruptly even though the rest of his self has been left far behind. And beyond that -
The rest is silence.
Author's Note: So, I don't exactly have a planned release date for each chapter, but I do have the ending written out. I've had it written out since the very start. It took me forever to get this first chapter out because I could never be satisfied with it, but I realised that if this was ever going to see the light of day I needed to complete it. I don't think I'll ever be really happy with this beginning, but I am certain, quite so, that its end will be just right.
On a happier note, it's great to get back to writing Shizuo and Izaya as they are in canon again, yelling and scheming. Their actions are always loud and dynamic, it's like they're putting on a play for an audience of none but themselves. :p