Sequel of sorts to 'Strength in Numbers', though can be read stand-alone.
.
When he'd first met the kid, Heiwajima Shizuo had thought he's the same as me, with no small sense of wonder. Now, two years on, he was slowly beginning to realize he couldn't have been more wrong.
He hadn't expected to ever see the small British boy again, and had all but forgotten him. That is, until the day he threw a stop sign at someone and had it calmly handed back to him.
"This is yours, right?" the kid had said, blue eyes innocent and wide beyond belief. "Do you remember me?"
He was so nonplussed the guy he'd been chasing slipped away unnoticed.
"Yes," he'd said.
"Great." The kid pulled a large rucksack off his back and dumped it on the ground, flashing a hopeful, open smile. "Can I stay with you for a little bit?"
.
Shizuo's apartment was paid for by his boss, in a building that housed yakuza and undesirables of varying sorts. He was probably stationed there in order to keep them in line, but he didn't really care why. Generally, he left them alone and they left him alone, and the situation worked well for him. It was a fairly quiet area, which he liked, and his small living quarters were bland and tidy. Were tidy.
Since Finnian had blasted his way into his life his room had gotten a lot louder in terms of colour, mess and audio. Finny didn't have many belongings, but he did have enough to cover his entire floor within a day of arriving.
"What is that?" Finny asked, craning his neck to see out of the small window, and Shizuo turned to see what he was looking at. He didn't often look outside, and the woman wearing bunny ears and not much else on the giant sign down below took him by surprise. It couldn't have been up for long.
"Strip club," he said, feeling slightly out of place. What exactly does one do with an unwittingly powerful teenager who has suddenly barged into one's life?
"Oh." Finny didn't seem fazed; he simply shifted his attention to the walls, the ceiling, the bed, the kitchen, the bathroom –
"Why are you here?" Shizuo asked.
"I wanted to see you again," Finny said cheerfully. "I never met anyone like me before, so I practiced hard at the language and Sebastian said if I was good I could come here on a holiday and last month I only ruined the garden five times so he said okay."
Shizuo narrowed his eyes at the name Sebastian. He'd only met the man for a few seconds, and he already disliked him. Something about him gave him the creeps, and he was sure it wasn't only because he looked like Izaya.
He wasn't exactly looking forward to sharing his home with someone else for the first time since – well, the first time since he left his parents' home – and he still wasn't exactly sure why he'd said yes. In fact, he hadn't actually said yes at all, it had just kind of happened when the kid followed him. Nevertheless, it wasn't every day he met someone with the strength to rival his own either, so he wasn't 100% annoyed. Yet.
.
Shizuo rolled over, his arm hitting something soft and warm. His eyes snapped open and his temper rose instantly. "What the hell," he roared, and sent his bedside table crashing through the wall into his living room.
That took the edge off his anger enough for him to realize four things. One, it was a person in his bed as he'd assumed; two, the person was alive (thank fucking god, if Izaya ever put another corpse in his bed he was going to nail him to the wall in a thousand pieces); three, the person happened to be the kid from yesterday; and four, the kid was still sleeping.
Shizuo focused inwards and tried to do the deep breathing thing Celty had told him about. It worked, somewhat, and he was now calm enough to simply lift the side of the bed and tip the kid off it rather than throwing him out the window.
Finny landed on the floor with a thud and sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, his strawlike hair sticking out in all directions. He looked confused and childlike, his rumpled oversized shirt not helping his case. His face brightened when he saw Shizuo, and he didn't seem at all bothered by his rude awakening. "Shizuo-san! What are we doing today?"
Shizuo frowned. Was he expected to show the kid around or something? But that wasn't even the point, the point was – "Why were you in my bed?" He had lain out a futon for him last night, he remembered doing it because he'd had to search forever to remember if he even owned one.
"It was cold on the floor," Finny said cheerfully. It was like he was just stating a fact, not offering an excuse, and Shizuo wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to react to that. Eventually he decided he'd just ignore it.
"I have work," he said instead.
"Can I come?" Finny asked.
Shizuo shrugged.
.
Tom eyed Finny with idle curiousity, but made no comment about the fact that Shizuo had brought a friend with him. Instead, he flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette and ground it under his foot. "We've only got a couple of guys to catch up with today, but they owe a lot between them. Tone down the physical threats a little, alright? We can't have them ending up in hospital because if they're injured they're not making us our money back, and if we're not getting the money the boss will cut off my fingers."
"You exaggerate." Shizuo pulled out his own smokes and set one between his teeth. "I'm always gentle."
Tom rolled his eyes, and jerked his head to the left. "Well, we're going south, Russia Sushi way. It's not far so I figure we'd walk."
Shizuo shrugged and strode off in the right direction without another word. Tom strolled sedately behind and Finny skipped to keep up.
"If you do a door to door service type thing, why do you wear the uniform?" Finny asked.
"My brother brought them for me," Shizuo answered shortly.
"Cool!"
Finny didn't walk; he jumped around like an overexcited spaniel. It was tiring just to watch him. "I wish I had a brother. Though I suppose Bard and Mey-rin are kind of like siblings. But I don't know anyone from my real family. What's it like?"
Shizuo thought about stone-faced, rational Kazuka. No matter how proud he was of his brother, somehow he didn't want Finny to know he was good-looking and famous. "We get along, I suppose."
Like chalk and cheese, their mother used to say. But they did get along surprisingly well, their amicable relationship built on all the things they didn't say to each other.
"Ah, I'm so jealous," Finny said good-naturedly, skipping ahead. "I wonder what my – oof." He fell backwards, suddenly sprawled on the pavement. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't see you."
The person he'd tripped on – who squats in the middle of the footpath, honestly, Shizuo thought irritably, waiting impatiently for Finny to get up so they could keep moving – turned and gave Finny a smile that was 90% smirk.
Finny's eyes doubled in size. "Hey, you look just like Sebastian. Do you know him? You could be brothers. That would be cool. I don't know if Sebastian even has a family though. Sometimes I think he just popped into existence the way he is now."
"Brother?" The man looked amused. "That's interesting."
Shit. He'd know that voice – and that fur-rimmed jacket – anywhere. Shizuo lifted Finny by the collar of his shirt and flung him over one shoulder, taking large strides in order to get the hell away from that stupid flea.
"Ooooh, Shizu-chan?"
The voice had adopted a mocking, lilting tone. Shizuo grit his teeth and kept walking.
The man skipped ahead of him, and Finny struggled to get down. "If I'd known the boy belonged to you I might have been more polite, Shizu-chan."
"Hey, hey, you know each other?" Finny asked.
"You're not welcome in Ikebukuro," Shizuo growled, the red beginning to swarm the edges of his vision.
"How cruel, Shizu-chan." The man pouted, and then gave a sinful grin. "You know I love you."
Shizuo dropped Finny and picked up a trashcan."Iiiizaya," he hissed.
Tom whisked Finny out of the street and into a doorway, despite his loud protests. "You don't want to get in between those two, kiddo."
"You're such a sweetheart," Izaya crooned, ducking as the trashcan flew past his head and dancing in wide circles around the angry blond.
"Get lost, Flea."
Izaya cupped a hand around one ear, leaning towards him. "What was that? You missed me?" He danced backwards, flicking a switchblade open and dangling it loosely in one hand. "Then come get me."
Shizuo felt the last thread of his control snap. "Die."
.
Two streets, five road signs, three cars and numerous trashcans later, he finally had the flea cornered. If he really thought about it, the way that Izaya had simply stopped moving and let himself be hit by that last tyre was a little out of character; unfortunately, cohesive thought somewhat eluded him still.
"Ne, Shizu-chan, you never told me you had a child."
The conversational tone was enough to smack him a little back into his rightful mind, enough to retort, "Idiot, how the hell could I have a child?"
"Ach, fair enough." Izaya grinned, and lazily swiped at him with the switchblade. "It's not possible to have children when you're a bumbling protozoan virgin."
Shizuo scowled, not bothering to dodge, but there wasn't much he could say against the truth. "Wait, why would you think I have a kid?"
Izaya nodded at something behind him.
"I'm not falling for that."
"Suit yourself." Izaya shrugged, and used his momentary confusion to duck around him anyway.
Shizuo spun on his heel, feeling the rage build up again, only for his ears to be assaulted by a barrage of, "Sorry, sorry, excuse me, it's all fixed now, please don't think badly of us, sorry."
The street behind him was not quite the mess he usually left it in; the reason for this became clear as he watched Finny lift a car that had been turned on its side and place it gently back into its parking spot, bending a full 90 degrees to its shocked owner. "Please forgive us."
Izaya skipped gleefully over to the kid and slung an arm round his shoulder, leaning in close. "Hey, what's your name? Wanna come back to my place and hang out?"
"I'm Finnian!"
"Finnian-san, huh? Where'd you learn to toss cars like that?"
Shizuo grabbed a collar in each hand and yanked them apart. "Kid, we're leaving. Don't talk to this scum."
"But he seems nice," Finny protested.
"I am nice," Izaya lied, grinning ear to ear. "You should come over and check out my awesome gadget collection, not hang out with someone who doesn't even use your name."
"Finny," Shizuo snapped, glaring at Izaya, "He just wants to experiment on you. His favourite 'gadget' is that knife."
"Oh." Finny's face fell. "That's not nice."
"Why would you just believe everything that hothead says? I'm not the one who just mutilated the whole street." Izaya looked from one blond to the other.
"Because Shizuo-san is my friend," Finny said, matter-of-fact. "I like him."
Shizuo froze. No one had ever said they liked him before. In awe of, sure, and scared of, most definitely, but liked? He got the feeling that most people endured his presence rather than enjoyed it.
"We-ell, in that case… " Izaya pulled Finny close and whispered something in his ear, slipping a business card into his hand before skipping away with a cheerful, "Bye-bye, Shizu-chan!"
Finny blinked. "Shizuo-san, you have weird friends."
"That flea is not my friend," Shizuo snapped.
"Okay." Finny shrugged, and skipped closer to him. "Now what?"
"Now what," Shizuo repeated. He scratched his head. "I guess we find Tom, and get back to work."
.
Shizuo heaved himself off the couch, clutching his head and wobbling towards the kitchen. With the surprise appearance of Kadota, Walker, and Erika 'work' had somehow turned into 'unlimited drinks'. He had the feeling he'd destroyed a bunch of bar property and could clearly remember Tom saying I know he's wearing a fur-lined jacket but that's not Orihara-san so please don't kill him but he had no clue how he'd ended up back at his apartment.
A glass shattered on the floor as his hand misjudged the distance to the cabinet, but after a moment's concentration he successfully netted a second one and sloshed water into it. Tossing it back, Shizuo squinted out the window. He'd passed out for some amount of time but it was still dark, so it can't have too long. He filled and downed a second glass before remembering his small blond charge. Finny didn't appear to be anywhere in the apartment.
That's strange. He felt… almost worried for the kid. He shouldn't be, because the kid had strength that rivaled his own, but knowing that didn't stop the prickle of unease in his chest. Despite his raw power Finny just seemed too damn innocent and bright to be left alone on the sullied streets of Ikebukuro.
He dropped the glass in the sink and turned to check the bedroom for signs of the short blond, swaying unevenly. Perhaps he was still a little drunk.
Finny wasn't in the room, but the light on his phone was blinking. He picked it up and squinted at the screen. "Celty-san?"
Orihara-san asked me to transport someone to Shinra's father's place tonight. I don't usually question jobs as long as he is paying me, but the only coherent word the boy could say was your name. I thought you might want to know, because I'm a little worried about what Shingen-san wants him for.
Shizuo stared at the phone for a moment before crushing it in his fist. "Izaya," he hissed.
.
The walls of Shingen's house were thinner than expected, and it only took three strong hits with a lamppost to knock one down. Of course, he could have simply ripped the door off its hinges but Shizuo was past rational thought and the door had been locked. Knocking down the entire wall had seemed the more practical thing to do.
Pieces of drywall crumbled in his hands as he stepped through the hole he'd made, eyes narrowed and muscles tense. The room he'd so rudely entered looked like a poster for a post-apocalyptic movie. The dining table had been snapped in half, and decorative fruit debris lay snarled in the unkempt tresses of the purple shag carpet. The sofa was upside down, and the better half of a chair was firmly embedded in the wall, embellished with the remnants of a once-overtly fancy chandelier. The ruined room was dimly lit by pale streaks of fragmented moonlight filtered by the broken windowpane. The place was deserted.
Shizuo stalked further into the room, snarling as his foot hit an overturned chair. Pissed, he kicked it into the wall where it splintered into pieces and stomped his way up the hallway. Finny hadn't been this far, apparently; the bedrooms looked untouched. Out of spite he ripped the TV off the wall and threw it out the window. It made a very satisfactory shattering sound as it hit the concrete, so he decided to complement it with all the dresser drawers he could find and their contents.
Shizuo stiffened abruptly. At the end of his destructive melody he could have sworn he'd heard a faint whimper. Treading with silent feet he moved back up the hallway into the living room. There it was again. It was coming from… under his feet?
He ripped up the horrendous shag carpet, tossing it over his shoulder, and stared incredulously at the floor. A trapdoor? Who on earth has a trapdoor in this day and age?
Assuming it was locked and not bothering to test his theory, Shizuo instead leaped in the air and landed on the trapdoor full force with both feet, plunging right through it. Not bothering to get his bearings or shake off the shock of the landing Shizuo hit the ground and kept walking. He had landed in a dark hallway, and the whimpering he'd heard before was echoing down the corridor towards him. His heartbeat quickened. Finny. The hallway was, thankfully, not very long, and the end of the hall boasted a suspicious door decorated with various high-tech looking locks.
Very calmly, Shizuo turned around and walked back down the hallway. When he reached the end he turned again, and ran full-tilt towards the door, smashing a Shizuo-shaped hole through it and barreling right into the opposite wall, which he bounced off, landing unceremoniously on his ass in the centre of the room. He lifted a hand to his face to wipe his nose. It came away bloody.
Shizuo blinked, his vision blurring. The room was bright, and now he had a headache ten times worse than a hangover. Given the scattered surgical equipment he could see through his squinted eyes, this was a hidden room where Shingen performed all his 'personal' experiments.
"'Zuo-san!"
Finny? The voice didn't sound like someone who was in pain, or terrified. Shizuo turned his head in the direction of the voice, blinking a few more times to try and repair his vision, and fell backwards as something large and solid cannonballed into his lap.
It took a couple more blinks and a few deep breaths to realize the kid was sitting on him. Finny had wrapped his arms around his waist and was mumbling a slurred version of his name over and over. Shizuo patted his back awkwardly.
The whimpering sound came again and Shizuo looked up from the kid in his lap, noticing for the first time that the bundled lab coat in the corner was twitching. "Shingen?"
The lab coat moaned. "Don't make me eat the butterflies. I'll give you your head back."
Shizuo frowned. His burning rage had all but dissipated, his head throbbed, and Finny was now snoring against his collarbone. There didn't seem to be a clear answer to what had happened here and at this point he didn't particularly care. He just wanted to get home and sleep. Shinra's father probably deserved whatever hell had been bestowed upon him and it didn't look like he'd die, so he figured he would just leave the pitiful man in his corner.
Hoisting the drowsy blond higher on his shoulder Shizuo sensibly took his leave, stepping gingerly over piles of medical tools haphazardly dumped on the floor. Finny sighed in his sleep and buried his nose in his shoulder.
.
Shizuo woke confused and angry for the third time in a row, forcing himself to lie still until he'd pieced together how, exactly, he'd ended up in this position. Everyone was drinking. Finny got kidnapped. I found him again and brought him home. It all made sense, but it didn't explain why the blond was in his bed, snuggled against his chest.
He wouldn't let go of me, Shizuo remembered. I tried to put him in the futon and he wouldn't let go of my arm. So I just let him sleep here.
If it had been anyone else, he'd have just shaken them off. But with Finny – well, he'd tried shaking him off but the kid's grip was as strong as his own, and short of bashing his head into the wall there was nothing that would get him to let go.
It was surprising how, once he'd calmed the confusion of not understanding how he'd gotten into this position in the first place, it was actually quite pleasant. Finny was warm and soft, and it felt like he was finally giving the comfort and support that Kasuka had never wanted – nor seemed to need – from him. He hadn't realized exactly how much he'd craved that feeling. It felt good knowing that someone needed him.
Finny stirred, stretching, and blinked open his eyes. "Shizuo-san!" he said happily, propping himself up on his elbows and staring down at Shizuo. "Good morning!"
Shizuo smiled. "Morning."
Finny sat back on his knees, rubbing his hands through his hair and yawning. The midday sun peeked through the window and bathed him in an outline of gold. The clips in his fringe were skewed, almost to the point of falling out, and Shizuo resisted the temptation to put them back in place.
"What happened last night?" Shizuo asked. He hadn't cared in the darkness, but now that his head was throbbing a little less and he'd gotten enough sleep he couldn't help but be curious.
"Dunno." Finny scratched his head. "I feel like I just had a really weird dream."
"Humour me," Shizuo said. "What did you dream about?"
"Hm. The black-haired guy – Izaya-kun?" – told me he'd let me know more about you if I went to see him so I did, and he gave me a drink that made me feel funny but good, and then I was riding on a black bike with a lady, and then there was a guy in a gasmask and I really really wanted to try it on." Finny frowned. "He wouldn't let me so I tried to get it off him and I think I broke some stuff and then he folded over in the corner and then you came." He pouted. "I still didn't get to try on the mask."
Shizuo clenched his fists almost to the point of breaking his knuckles. That stupid flea drugged him. I won't forgive it. Shingen was probably trying to drug him too, and accidentally stabbed himself with Finny chasing him around.
"I got to come back here with you, though, which is great!" Finny smiled innocently at him. He suddenly looked shy. "You know, you're like what I always imagined my big brother would be like, if I had one. I've never had any family before."
Shizuo sat up slowly, pushing himself back to lean against the head of his bed and gently ruffling Finny's hair. "I'd be happy to be your honorary big brother," he said gruffly.
"Really?" Finny's eyes sparkled.
"Sure." Finny's happiness was infectious, and he couldn't help but smile back. It would be nice, he decided, to have a brother who wouldn't be hurt if he accidentally threw furniture at him. A brother who needed him.
.
A/N: Well that jumped all over the show. And ended kinda abruptly. Ugh. I have the rough outline for a possible part 3, anyone interested? It would be either fluffy shounen ai or fluffy shounen ai with smexytimes, lemme know your preferences.