Title: Dancing on Saturn's Rings
Series: Durarara!
Rating: R
Characters: Shinra/Celty
Notes: Non-explicit smut. And fluff. Lots of fluff.

–

Love was not something a dullahan was meant to experience. It was a human concept, a human emotion; territory her kind were not to trespass upon. The silent, unbreakable rule. Dullahans don't have a heart. Dullahans can't love.

Celty had always accepted that fact. She was a dullahan coping in a human world, hiding under the pretense of humanity, accepting that she was different and the mortal world was not ready to accept something as unnatural as her. But over the years, she had begun to change, so very gradually. She, a dullahan, had discovered one of the greatest treasons of her kind.

Emotion.

And with emotion, came love.

There was no beating heart in her chest, nothing there at all, but the fact of the matter was that something deep in the middle of her ribcage would clench and ache in the most annoyingly delightful ways when she saw or even thought of her flatmate, Shinra. All too often she had heard of all those little telltale nuisances that came as part of the packaged deal, mostly from Shinra himself, but to experience her stomach doing little somersaults was not something Celty had ever expected. What confused her more than the torrent of feelings whirlwinding through her was the fact that she enjoyed them. Immensely.

It may have been the curious hunger that led to her eventual acceptance of Shinra's affections, the want to know more, to feel more, to really understand why no one else would satiate that dull spark her nonexistent heart insisted on twisting around until it became absolutely unbearable. She didn't fully comprehend if what she felt was actually the same emotion Shinra bestowed upon her all hours of the day, if the way his touch made her toes curl was an actual attribute of love, but she took pleasure in her relationship with the man, how safe and comfortable his arms always were, the way his lips would leave a little pool of slowly dissipating warmth on her skin when he kissed her, and even the praise he'd so often bestow upon her. For the first time in a truly long while, Celty was actually happy.

But she still wasn't sure if those emotions, the feelings, and the way her body would react without consent from her will was actually love. Yes, everything she'd heard about it, the things she read all pointed in that one direction, but dullahans are not supposed to love. Loving was human. How could she, a fairy, be enduring such things as if she had somehow absorbed the traits by some odd form of symbiotic osmosis from living so long with a human?

Naturally, these concerns were all brought to Shinra, her beloved scientist of a lover who always had a hypothesis or two for the way she functioned or any other little thing that caught his interest. What she wasn't expecting was that Shinra didn't have a clue, or an explanation, about the wonders of the dullahan psyche.

"You need to understand that science is all theory. Everything, even gravity, is nothing more than an idea hypothesized by curious minds in an attempt at explaining the way natural phenomena occur." He smiled in an effort to appease her disappointment, taking her hands in his own. "Emotions are possibly the greatest mystery of all. Many have long since accepted that we feel them for no other reason than we're meant to feel them. I could bore you with all the biochemical compositions that go into it, but those would only apply to humans. You think that being a dullahan means you aren't meant to experience the occurrence of emotions, when in truth it is because you are Celty that you feel the way you do. Don't think of the dullahan aspects of what you are, but the personal aspects of who you are."

Long-winded though the monologue was, it didn't answer her question. But Shinra did have a habit of straying from the point, so it wasn't surprising at all. Celty still planted her fist firmly in his gut and shoved her PDA into his face to get him back on track.

[That doesn't explain anything! How am I supposed to know if I really love you?]

Of course, the moment he saw the message, Shinra laughed, gleefully unabashed. She frantically attempted a second message, but the smoke obscuring the ceiling was an obvious sign of her embarrassment. His fingertips pressed against the little screen before she could finish smashing the keys, catching her own and getting her to look up as he smiled softly down at her.

"I can prove to you, without a doubt, that I love you. I can show you what it's like to give yourself completely to another, to want nothing more than to be by their side for eternity. But only you can know if that is love, Celty."

Maybe it was her yearning for an answer that compelled her, despite the implications of those words, despite the lingering doubt, Celty asked Shinra to show her his love, to prove that the emotions stirring within him for twenty long years had been love all along and not some fantasy which plagued his boyish mind.

Shinra agreed.

He took her into his arms so gently, kissing her shoulders and neck, brushing his mouth over the material of her suit until sheer desire for his skin to touch hers compelled her to dispel the shadows completely. His lips left no inch of her body untouched as they trekked a dotted pattern of no particular shape, whispering that she didn't need to do a thing but sit there and feel as he fell to his knees before her and brought his attention to her stomach and legs, bending before her like a slave swearing fealty to his master.

For the longest while Shinra worshiped her with his lips and just his lips, though his hair sometimes tickled against her skin as he moved. Minutes flew by as he stayed there, knees on the hard floor while she splayed comfortably against their shared bed, kissing her softly in a way that was profusely intimate but not the least bit sexual. A private ceremony for her alone.

Only after he felt that he had sufficiently adored her did Shinra raise himself back to the bed, mouth settled over her collar as he held himself above her. He asked if she trusted him, and how could she say no after such attentions? When Shinra explained that he was going to make love to her, she gave him a whack upside the head, but more out of embarrassment than any will to deny him.

Love making, or sex, was not something Celty had never expressed any yearning to experience. Much like love itself. But Shinra's mouth was clever enough to rekindle her earlier curiosity, coaxing her along with butterfly kisses and little murmurs of admiration. She would have hit him again for it, had he not interjected laughingly and said she was meant to feel, not think.

Feeling, then. Not thinking. Not analyzing why her chest constricted when he lingered over her breasts, or why her spine arched as if she couldn't get close enough to him. Mercilessly, he overloaded her senses, holding her and coaxing her to move with him, against him, leaving her with no room but to mindlessly obey as her hands wound up his back and into his short hair, encouraging him with the actions she couldn't voice.

Seemingly without effort, he took her apart and put her back together, only to repeat the process indefinitely until she couldn't tell where one of them ended and the other began. Burning within the flames of passion, she couldn't even tell whose voice cried out, couldn't distinguish between Celty and Shinra at all. They were one in that moment, for that single beautiful moment as pleasure bled white hot through her nerves and she trembled and shuddered and screamed out and understood.

That was love.

To be so close and yet so far, forever longing for the gentle brush of a soul against her own. To finally have that soul so willing to dance with her own in the most stunning of waltzes-

Shinra loved her.

And as she came completely undone, Celty realized that she truly loved him too.