Rythemic, a hypnotising combination of gentle and abrupt, the amber light glared through the windscreen and threw itself over Izaya's pallid, sticky grey-white complexion before ricocheting off again leaving the form in the shadows. Shizuo watched this throbbing of light that lit up the back seats mock the gaunt contours of his travel companion's face for several minutes, until the dark outlines, limp black hair and sickly skin blurred into one another in a swamp of orange.
It wasn't as if he had noticed him staring anyway.
Head leaning on his hand against the cool of the window, his enemy stared onto the streets, seemingly apathetic to his current situation, though maybe that wasn't so different.
Shizuo had never been so terrified in his life.
And he had a strong hunch that underneath it all, Izaya was in a similar state of mind.
Reaching to readjust his sunglasses, he inwardly cursed to find that they were no longer there- probably lost and broken in the confusion, though he felt somewhat uncomfortably open without them- it was all too easy for his own eyes to be read was something he had realised years ago.
Inhaling deeply, though as subtly and quietly as he could, his head filled with the pungent, toxic stench of warm, new leather, and began to ache terribly as it performed rugged, nauseating somersaults. He took to resting his head against the glass to his right, cold and soothing, and he too, everted his eyes to the streets, as the car continued to stay at a stand still.
Street signs were in a alphabet he could not read and a language he could not interpret. Empty stomach swirling, he didn't need to be told that he was further away from Tokyo than he could have imagined possible.
Unable not to stare out of usual suspicious instinct, Shizuo was bemused to take in the image Izaya as it was. His fist clenched next to him on the seat, he had never looked so frail, small and vulnerable. Usually bulked out and made confident by his large jacket, curled and contorted slightly against the car door, it simply over powered his meek body language and expression.
The indicator light ceased to flash, and the engine stirred drowsily as they drove on. He watched wide, dark roads pass slowly, framed in timid strings of street lamps, shadows all around. Shizuo never thought a city could be so loose packed, so empty... so utterly dark. Buildings, establishments, homes were as far off as several streets, rather than the motorways hugged by towering, bright high rise flats, office blocks and tightly packed streets. Everything was so open... so blatantly different.
Cumbersome and misplaced, Simon's form loomed clumsily at the steering wheel in front, looking estranged in a shirt and tie, his head uncovered. Taking in the time of the clock on the dashboard, he puzzled over whether it was the early hours of the morning here, where ever that happened to be, or at home.
Shinra sat mechanically in the front passenger seat, glaring ahead, face vacant, only his eyes moved as passing lights glittered in the lenses of his spectacles. Neither had talked throughout the whole journey, and didn't seem to be in any hurry to answer if they were to be asked questions.
Izaya had been a top student, and grudging though it was to say, was a genius; he would most likely be able to work out where they had ended up. What was meant to be a growled, 'Where the hell is this, flea?!' stumbled in his throat and came out as a mere high-pitched croak of,
"Where are we?"
Remaining in the same position as ever, Izaya replied, voice vague and wandering, "I never thought knowing Russian would catch up on me like this."
Shizuo's mouth dried until it was unbearable.
Russia.
Even he had respected his education enough to know how far he was from home. To know how vast the Russian Federation was.
No one had ever known, and even he hadn't until now, how much being away from where he knew, where he resided, being in a place so different from what he was used to, scared him. More so than waking up after being drugged in the back of a car with the person he hated the most, a foreign rival and a black-market doctor in the front. He couldn't tell, however, if it was those exact details that had appeared have thrown Izaya so far out of his comfort zone.
It might have been because on occasions the once friendly familiar black biker had been seen racing round corners or beside the window, guiding the car through the night. Seeing her and knowing that the dullahan's head sat in it's container of eerie green liquid, glowing weirdly, like something out of a science fiction movie, on Shinra's lap.
Whatever this was all about, it had never been so deadly serious, hanging in the air heavily, pressing down on his shoulders and grappling at the windows. He could not even begin to comprehend how they had managed to get from an afternoon in Ikebukuro to waking up in a car in the middle of the night Russia, the transaction all whilst unconscious, but Shizuo didn't particularly care to work it out.
Nails dug into his palm, grinding his teeth, he was quickly becoming more and more agitated. Shifting slightly, sweating where he sat, as if Izaya could smell the anxiety, he wearily broke out of his trance.
They may never had been in such close quaters without him throwing a rubbish bin and the other brandishing a knife, but Shizuo then found himself victim to what he thought was probably the most curious action Izaya had ever commited. Lifting his head off his hand, Izaya leaned across the middle seat to smoothly remove the packet of cigarettes in the other's left pocket, and slid one out. He stuffed the filter end into the side of Shizuo's mouth before picking up the lighter that had fallen out onto the seat with delicate and skilled fingers, flicked it and lit the end. What was even more curious was when he then took another out, put it in his own mouth and lit up, and tossed the packet and lighter onto the middle what Shizuo knew, the other had never smoked in his life.
Elbows leaning on his lap as he sat forward, head resting on one arm and facing towards Shizuo, it was a sight he'd never though he'd see. Holding it awkwardly in his fingers, face subdued, Izaya drew in breath slightly, cigarette glowing, before most of the smoke was puffed out of his mouth, lowering it away from his face, eyes watering.
"You're stressed, and we can't have you smashing things around right now, can we?"
Was all he said, hoarsely.
Adjusting the cigarette between his lips and drawing smoke into lungs gratefully, despite his already dry mouth, Shizuo tried to relax, leaning back in his seat, however eyes still wondering and fixed on Izaya suspiciously. He otherwise would probably have had more respect than to smoke in other people's cars, but given they had practically been abducted anyway, and Shinra and Simon didn't seem to take any notice or be bothered, Shizuo ignored the fact as he blew out a fine spurt of smoke.
"Shit's serious this time, isn't it?" He asked gruffly, sounding marginally more confident than before.
The figure in black didn't answer, but his eyes were heavy lidded and blank; he had never appeared so defeated.
"I think just this once, my love for humans has dried up."
It was a damning enough explanation in its self.
Izaya continued to struggle to take in smoke, switching the cigarette from hand to hand each time he took a small breath. Shizuo observed this as he took deep drags of his own, trying to allow his muscles to become less tense. Slouching against the stiff seating, attempting to play a facade of some normality, he couldn't look away from the crumpled, scrawny figure folded in the far left corner of the back seats, smoke gradually billowing in clouds around him. Flattened fur on his creased jacket and scruffy hair gave him the air of a cat that had just lost a fight, was the slightly comical thought that came to Shizuo's mind.
Inhaling too quickly, Izaya choked on the heavy clouds of tension and smoke, a meagre cough rattled him sharply. It was this single sign of utter weakness, and the fact he had let it be shown, that felt like Shizuo's innards had just been mangled.
If this was what this smooth, snitching, calm and sly urban legend had been reduced to, what did that make him?
Deterring his eyes, he almost felt ashamed to witness Izaya's crumbling garrison walls. He instead examined the armrest on the door to not only pick out an ash compartment, but to flick the switch for the window, it's blue light glowing out from the darkness of the car, the glass sliding down completely. Almost out of sympathy, he let the cool night air pour into the back of the car and overpower the smokey, stifling, warm haze. Although there was little wind and they were cruising along smoothly and a fairly slow pace, Shizuo let the sound of passing vehicles drown out the light rasping gasps of Izaya trying to regain command of his lungs.
He never would have imagined that city air could smell so clean. So fresh and light, with such a lack of traffic fumes it seemed almost empty.
But it was. The whole city was. It didn't feel like a city, even if this was no more than the suburbs- cities weren't so vastly open and cavernous and... free, surely?
Slowly finishing his cigarette, resting his arm on the side so as the refreshingly numbing breeze brushed across his fingers, the eerie pretence of a 'city' going past in an array of vulgar yellow, orange and red street lighting and headlights, lurid junctions and gloomy housing estates.
When he eventually turned after flicking the cigarette butt, burnt almost completely down to the filter, onto the ground outside, he watched as Izaya weedily stubbed the cigarette out in the ash compartment, leaving it still smouldering slightly as he furled his arm back to his side.
Shizuo heard the roar of horses from out side the window.
He let the smell of cigarettes, thoughts of what he would throw at Izaya of daring getting him into such a mess, for surely; it must have been his fault, and the lingering taste of tobacco consume him as the car journey continued to drag on.
Dawn bled cardinal into the bleached azure sky, rolling over a chilling, humid breeze on it's wake.
Eyes became afraid of the world, as they dragged Shizuo's mind closer and closer towards rest, and, it was hoped, peace of mind.
Heavy head and bleary vision eventually unglued themselves from the door handle turned and focused on Izaya, to find his rust red irises behind pale, closed lids and feathery lashes. Forehead leaning on the window, and limbs retracting spindly, curled up as if in a tired attempt of protection. Breathing shallowly, he didn't move, and after a minute or so Shizuo judged that he was definitely asleep.
Eyes slowly sliding to Shinra, the container still securely on his lap as he sat stiff as a board, though his head was lolling slightly. Simon appeared unfazed by time and still going strong at the wheel.
He looked over at Izaya again.
To see him so defenceless almost caused all lethargy to drain from Shizuo's body.
It would be child's play just to reach over and... strangle him, to take own knife and slit his throat with it, to crack his skull...
To put an end to the man he despised so simply and so quickly after years of constant feud.
It would be so easy.
So swift that the men in front wouldn't even be able to stop him.
But was there such a thing as too easy, too swift, to the point where it was meaningless? While he slept and couldn't put up a fight?
No, he would be more human than his enemy this time; although it seemed petty, there was no chivalry in the alternative.
Izaya's own knife... Shizuo glanced down to see it on the middle seat.
It hadn't been there before, he could have sworn it.
Placed there?
Izaya may have been infamous for cruel mind games to anyone who was unfortunate to fall victim or witness to them, but this... test that he had been given was suddenly so out of place given Izaya's disadvantaged situation. Usually it would never be what had the potential to be his life on the line- he was far too selfish and proud to fall to that standard.
Shizuo cursed that even now, Izaya could still have the intelligence to think to present him with something like this.
He was expected to pick it up, of course; if he didn't, not only did that show he lacked in being observant, but also there was far too much risk in what Izaya might do with it. This was no average situation, and Izaya was evidently in no average state of mind.
What he was expected to do with it when he picked it up was unclear, however- whether he was expected to confiscate it, dispose of it, or, indeed, slaughter the the owner with the damned thing.
Stiff joints creaked as Shizuo cautiously reached out his hand, picked the black, weighty little object off the seat and slipped it into his right pocket, before also dragging his arm up to weakly press the switch to close the still open window. Deciding he'd consider whether or not this was the most sensible action to take when he wasn't quite so tired, he let his head rest on the back of the seat and allowed exhaustion overcome his dehydrated and famished body.
When he jolted back into consciousness, with barely the will power to open his eyes, Shizuo became aware it was due to that the car had stopped, and the engine ceased to run.
Pulling his head up on an aching neck and opening his eyes to dim, early morning light, filtered by grim clouds that caged the sky outside the window, he shifted reluctantly to open the door as he watched Simon and Shinra begin to climb out of the car.
Inwardly highly grateful at the prospect of food, drink and relief, he staggered out on shaky legs, slamming the car door behind him, finding Izaya already standing, rather ghost like, at the other side of the car.
Gawking at his surroundings, Shizuo saw them to be in large, empty carpark, framed in many high rise blocks, all of a similar grimy beige-grey. The occasional muddy green of trees and grass could be seen around the distant perimeter, and a sharp, biting wind was blowing.
Both he and Izaya slowly wandered round to the back of the car, before eyes met in what was usually mutual disgust, but was now little more than confusion, weariness, and a hinting of fear as russet clashed with hazel.
Izaya slowly reached into one of his jacket pockets, and drew out a familiar pair of black sunglasses. Tossing them in Shizuo's direction, he watched as they were caught in his hands before eyes trailed to the ground and head drooped a little.
Shizuo managed to keep his face like stone as he carefully slid the sunglasses onto his face, his eyes safely obscured. Not really thinking or caring of the consequences, but more as a return of gesture, he found his hand retrieving Izaya's knife from his pocket.
Spinning it between his fingers and into the air, Izaya clasped it as it landed in his palm, and shoved into into his jacket pocket along with his other hand, wavering from foot to foot. To say he had his tail between his legs was perhaps not such a inaccurate comparison.
Wheels were heard ahead, and they raised their heads to see the black biker standing in the distance before them, shadows snaking outwards as she removed her helmet. Simon stood, formal and stiff, grave look on his face, a few metres away from the car. Shinra could be seen standing a little closer to the dullahon, container in his arms, head bowed. Although he would never allow anybody to notice, Shizuo was certain he saw single tear role down his cheek behind his fringe and spectacles.
"I guess this is what comes of making a desk ornament out of supernatural being's heads." Izaya's voice drifted almost inaudibly in the wind, and Shizuo barely had the strength work out what he meant, let alone to be enraged at his stupidity. They both began to approach Celty Sturluson with strong apprehension, though there wasn't much choice. Neither Shizuo nor Izaya had any idea what would become of the current circumstances, but knew whatever would happen was going to be inevitable.
Shizuo cursed under his breath and Izaya almost smirked as they both simultaneously realised that the cigarettes and lighter lay somewhere on the back seats.
Will be continued, title will also be changed.