I was cleaning out my wips folder when I realized I never posted this Shiki/Izaya fic on here, ooops! I don't own anything, and this pairing still needs more fics!

XXX

True Believer

XXX

Twenty minutes ago. Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

"A girl died in one of my clubs two nights ago, overdosed."

Shiki slid a few enlarged photos over to the other side of the table.

She was young, barely twenty, beneath the smeared makeup of her face. Lying down on the grimy tiles of a public toilet, her short skirt was hiked up far too high. Her light brown hair was tangled in a mess, it laid as a gruesome detail that complimented her sheet white skin.

She was long dead since she hit the ground.

It wasn't the first time either of them had seen something like this. There were always something more ghastly, more horrid, the surprise in death had long since worn off. Izaya lifted his gaze from the photos with no interest in his eyes, there was only one question on his mind. "What about it?"

"We found these on her." He fished out a small bag from his pockets and tossed it to the tabletop. A count of eight pills lay inside the plastic. "She was one of our bigger buyers for ecstasy but these aren't ours."

Izaya peered down and with interest returning with the quirk to his voice, he was already leaning down to observe the small pills in the bag. "These killed her?"

"We only found these on her."

Taking the unknown drugs into his own two hands, Izaya held one up to the florescent bulb, it wasn't see through and the white light radiated around the small pill like a vibrant halo caught between the tips of his fingers. "Did any of your men try them?"

"No."

He placed the pill back on to the table with the negative reply.

"Any speculations as to what they are?"

"None. We don't have anything like it."

Shiki could see the fascination shining in the depths of red, a morbid sense of humor that he lacked in return. Izaya pushed the plastic bag back and offered with a small gesture of a hand. "Shiki-san, look at them closely." There was a hint of a smile and sincerity glazed over the fascination.

"…What are you getting at?" He gave another glance at the pills but the plain milky white only made the drugs seem harmless, like tie-dyed candies washed of its colors.

"Nothing then." Izaya shrugged. "I just thought Shiki-san would be the one to make the connection."

Shiki narrowed his eyes, leaned back into the black leather sofa. "How much?"

"I can't be bought off all the time, Shiki-san." Izaya copied his actions but instead of the firm scowl, he had on a wide smirk. "I have personal morals too."

He didn't need Shiki to raise a brow at his words because it sounded rotten, even to his own ears.

"Morals?" Shiki let out a dry laugh. Shaking his head, he couldn't help but lower his eyes to catch a sight of those scattered photos. Izaya followed his gaze and gave a scoff; his red eyes rested on the girl's last close up and tried to imagine her pain. Not a feeling surfaced and so he waved a hand in the air to dismiss his attempt. "I can give you a hint though."

It was more for his lack of emotional upheaval than it was for the girl long dead.

"Continue."

"Two thousand." It was money that made this world spin and the two of them had been business partners for far too long to not know this. Shiki swiftly gave his reply with confidence in that low tenor voice of his. "Fine."

"Find out what they are made of."

With that, business wrapped itself up at their feet.

He picked up a pill from the wooden tabletop. There was uneasiness resting at the bottom of Shiki's stomach, it was a firm prediction to the nearby future. It was just a matter of time now that he had it in his hands.

Izaya winked, parted his lips and said.

"Now, observe."

And then he swallowed it dry.

000

Eight months back. Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Unlike Ikebukuro, Shinjuku was diligence in a million coloured lights and skyscrapers masked for high-rise buildings. The station was busy, crowded with the late evening rush and he stood by the pillar with his eyes on his cell phone screen.

"Izaya-san!"

He looked up from the text. She was cute, her smile was sweet and she was damaged from within. Orihara Izaya gave a wave and watched as a few more girls emerged from the sea of bleak gray faces. They had on skirts and knee-high boots, their lips glistened a cotton candy pink and their fingernails were the shade of a brilliant rainbow.

They called out his name in admiration and they flocked to him, like moths to a burning candle.

He slipped his phone into his pocket and strolled up to them with a smile on his face. These were broken girls with shattered souls and he was on a conquest to become their God. They walked out of the station until the Shinjuku streets became their backdrop and city lights became the stars in their sky.

It was him and five girls. They stood in a semi-circle by the red light and waited for change to occur.

None of them were all that well acquainted with each other. Their only link was Orihara Izaya, the man in the middle of all their wounds.

"Where are we going tonight?"

"I have this song stuck in my head, I say we go singing!"

"Karaoke? But I want to go clubbing more."

"I just went yesterday though..."

"Which? Karaoke or clubbing?"

"Karaoke. It was a place in Shibuya."

"We need to do something fun!"

"What do you have in mind?"

"Something none of us ever tried before."

"Are you saying…?"

She nodded at the other girls. Their dyed auburn locks glimmered as they all turned to the man in the middle and it was hardly a decision than it was pure faith.

"We want to try something new, Izaya-san."

She spoke for all of them but the feelings were mutual.

He took in the trust and the innocence in their faces before motioning to the green light. Staring off to the distance, the bright billboards of Shinjuku turned the red in his eyes a murky burgundy. A lone smile curved at his lips as he wrapped an arm around one of the girl's shoulders.

"I think I have a good place we can go."

He stepped into the streets and led them on.

000

Present time. Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

His eyelids grew heavy and his smile was wider than usual.

"This isn't your first time." It was meant to be a question but not even Shiki himself could mask the assumptions that he had made on Izaya's character since the first day he had met him.

"Who do you think I am, Shiki-san?" There was a long pause as he gave a senseless giggle to the sound of his own voice but with a deep breath, Izaya continued to speak, tone a few notches deeper than before. "I love to try new things."

"How old are you?" This wasn't Shiki's attempt for an interrogation. He was just trying to grasp the unlikely vulnerability presented to him at Izaya's free will.

"When has the legal age ever stopped you?" Izaya leaned forward in his seat but he was swaying and his eyes were hazed over. "Besides you don't have to worry, I am twenty-one."

"You said the exact same thing three years ago."

"Aww… I can't believe Shiki-san remember everything I say! Should I feel special?" Another burst of aimless laughter spilled from between his parted lips, there was instability gleaming in the blood pools of his eyes but his ability to hold a biting conversation didn't sit well with Shiki at all.

Shiki made no response as he stood up with the photos in his hands. Izaya followed with a sway to his steps, looking strangely light. As Shiki placed the gruesome photos back into its folders for future reference, Izaya was staring into the white light bulb of a lamp, transfixed.

"That's so bright…"

He was dazed out of his mind. Reaching out, he made to grab at the hot bulb but a firm grip at his wrist pulled him back. He slowly tore his gaze away from the bright white.

"That's a light bulb, idiot. Don't touch it." Shiki pulled the young man back a safe distance, only to earn a soft giggle from the informant that had gotten too close.

"… I knew that."

"Of course you do, Orihara-kun." The said-boy looked as if he was in a state of complete bliss. His skin radiated warmth and the light smile of his face finally matched the lukewarm red of his eyes. Shiki saw the evident difference, in both attitude and behaviors of the boy, forever twenty-one. "When does this wear off?"

He got a shrug of those narrow shoulders as a reply instead, hardly convincing from a man still not down from his high.

"… I'll be fine. Ah! The lights are so pretty outside."

With Shiki's hand still at his wrist, Izaya pulled the other man along to the windows.

"I want to get closer."

His breath fogged the glass panes.

Shiki could see the way the colored lights mellowed out the harsh pale tinge to Izaya's face but before anyone could say another word, Izaya had already directed his hazy drugged self at the office door. Letting go on reflex, Shiki watched as the informant slowly made for the door with a waltz through the office. There was a soft laugh at his lips even as his knees bumped into table corners and tucked in chairs.

But the pain did nothing to slow the other's mission and when Izaya's hand was finally on the door knob, his clammy fingers grasped the cool metal, he turned his head to bid Awakusu-kai's executive a goodnight.

The door opened.

There was a cool draft of the night breeze and to accompany that, there was an aggravated sigh.

In three seconds flat a hand had already locked his wrists into place. Izaya didn't need to look up to know that Shiki was standing right behind him and the door slammed shut as another arm reached out from his back.

"I don't want your dead body in front of my office tomorrow morning."

Shiki knew it as another responsibility but Izaya had already taken it in as an excuse to keep him for a night. His eyes waned into red slits and he smiled wide at the closed door.

"Is this your way of saying I care about you, Shiki-san?"

He tilted his head back, arching a pale line in the dim room and Shiki was presented with an eyeful of tangible flesh. Izaya licked his lips and Shiki let go of those narrow wrists.

"It's okay to feel this way, Shiki-san."

Instead he clutched on, pale fingers wrapping around a crisp white sleeve.

He gave him an unconvincing pat on the man's chest before pushing him to the worn leather couch.

The back of Shiki's knees hit the edge of the seats and he was forced to sit down. There was a lagging pause as they both reevaluated the situation sprawled over the short distance between them.

Shiki stared up into the wavering depths of those red eyes just as Izaya lowered himself into the other's lap. A long slender digit grazed against the gold necklace right before he softly murmured against the silence.

"I don't mind if you take advantage of me."

"… I think this is just the opposite, Orihara-kun."

Izaya leaned in with a wide smile and swallowed Shiki's words with greedy lips.

He didn't reject him but neither did he encourage for more. Shiki was only entertaining a young man half his age.

"Whatever you say, Shiki-san…" His voice was low and husky and his hands were resting on Shiki's shoulders, pushing him back, pulling him in. "I am the drugged one anyway."

He kissed him hard.

Effortless love always came his way. In the form of cute girls and narcissistic men, they would always lavish him with an interest that he couldn't reciprocate.

But the lingering touches along side of the heavy kisses, Izaya knew he could get used to this kind of one-sided affection where he needed to do the work. Izaya tasted cigarette as his arms circled around Shiki's neck. Bringing himself closer, he couldn't help but melt into the hand that rested against his lower back, a foreign gesture that made him warm inside.

His human instincts whirred against the drugs in his system.

And even with his twisted personality, it was a feeling that made sure he felt a little uneasy on the inside.

He waited for an inner come back like he would for a kiss.

Only unlike the kiss that did come, his brain never managed to provide a reasonable excuse for him to live it down. That human emotion that he couldn't swallow raw.

Izaya fell asleep on Shiki's lap and didn't stir until his men entered the office the next morning to see the rare informant and their boss.

000

Two days ago. Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

She met him through a friend.

And it was no surprise that she would fall for his charms.

Growing up, she had always been the type that fell in love at first sight. Whether he was the boy that sat next to her in grade school or the club president in middle school, she fell for every single one. But when she rested her eyes on him, she knew that he was the one.

He had a kind smile and eyes that brightened whenever he saw her.

The first time she had met him, they had been in a club and as their bodies brushed side by side, he pressed two white tablets into her palm.

She was down from her high but the cool touch of his fingertips against her heated skin brought a thrill that not even drugs could give. He was another ecstasy she had never tried. Bringing the pills closer to her glazed eyes, she spoke up to make sure her voice made it over the blaring music. "What is this?"

"It takes away the pain." He was soft-spoken but she took everything of his to heart. From the way his lips curved into a gentle smile to the way his eyes promised nothing but comfort. "Each and every last ounce of it."

"Promise?" She was already willing to succumb to everything that he would offer her but she had to ask one last time, it was her last confirmation that dissipated into the music.

"Trust me."

By then, he was the only thing supporting her upright.

She tilted her head back and opened her mouth. The unknown drugs he offered her were swallowed without a second thought. He took her hands into his and the two swayed against the music.

Since then, he was all that she could see because he was her prince charming in her concrete cage.

Still, her fairy tale ending unraveled one night, almost six months since their first meeting.

Yes, even after all the heart and soul she poured into his welcoming arms, he had a girl leaning against his shoulder, a girl with a sweet smile and innocence in her eyes.

She had never been the jealous type. She let him disappear for weeks without a single call or text. And the rare days when she did see him, they had always been with a dozen other people.

But she was fine with that.

She had always loved him too much for anything else.

Besides, at the end of the day, she would always be special in his eyes. There was nothing to doubt him and so she never tried to change a thing in their relationship. Yet, a week ago, when she saw him with this girl, an unexpected fire flared into life. It was rage and she didn't know why. He was her prince charming, not anyone else's.

And with that, she decided that she needed to give him a reminder.

Just a small notice for him to acknowledge her by.

She called the girls who had introduced him to her and starting from there, she moved on to a friend of a friend until she had enough of his drugs. This was her way of wanting him to know that she was hurt by his own hands, not through the pills but through another method that scarred her heart.

She took copious amounts of it before hitting one of the clubs that he visited most frequently. It seemed like a wild guess but she sincerely believed that the red string would pull them together and fate would be on her side.

This was her revenge, a scheme that brewed from jealousy.

She wanted his love.

Waiting, she took another one, and then another one. About a dozen per hour to keep up the dosage in her body. Four hours into the night, she had lost sight of the clock and lost count of the pills she had swallowed with another swig of alcohol.

She only wanted to scare him. She only wanted to remind him. She was his only one so please don't ever leave.

She stumbled against the crowds of people, eyes clouding, stomach turning. She tripped, she fell and the buzzing seemed to amplify. There was a bitter taste to the back of her throat and tears were running down her cheeks. She could no longer remember his face, she only remembered a father that had abandoned his family.

She sobbed against the ground and her love gave ways to her pain.

She only ever wanted to see guilt in those eyes.

Parting her lips, she gave one last plead.

"…Izaya-san..."

And then her world went black.

000

Three days later. Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

"Are you sure this is right?"

"Shiki-san, you have the keys to my house. Have some faith in me."

"Try seeing yourself being operated on by a rambling lovesick doctor."

"It helps me concentrate."

"Shinra, I still have my men complaining from the last time you pulled a bullet out of their bodies."

"Sorry about that time, Celty was—"

Shiki ended the call before the doctor began another love rant. He had the drug-diagnosis report in his hands.

The results were correct, he could see every single connection between Orihara-kun and his words, the dead girl and her drugs.

But it didn't make sense.

He sat in his chair and rubbed at his temple. He never saw his job as complicated. He only ever saw it as just another career in the world, perhaps a bit on the underground side of things but otherwise, there shouldn't be anything more to it.

As a young man, he was never a particularly good student, just another typical underage boy who could fight a little better than most. His crowd of friends were not the best kinds of people in the world. They would terrorize their kouhais for some handy cash and then spend it on cigarettes and cheap beer.

Shiki never agreed with their ways but neither would he ever speak up against it.

This world had a strict dog-eat-dog rule.

His philosophy: why be the eaten dog when you could be the dog eating?

So when graduation came along, he moved to Ikebukuro. Joining the yakuza was not a part of his plan but when the opportunity came up, he might as well give it a try. And then that had almost been twenty-years ago.

He glanced at the photographs of a young girl's life washed gray and dropped the analysis report Shinra had sent over to the mess sprawled across his desk. Shiki lit up a cigarette in hopes that the nicotine could ease the light pain that throbbed at the base of his skull.

Unlike Akabayashi, he had no problem with selling drugs to harmless girls from broken families. He didn't care enough for a ruined future or an addiction that would leave a million scars behind. He only saw business in their wild ways and profit from the pills.

It didn't mean that he was heartless, it just meant that he was human after all.

And that's why it was very human of him when he couldn't make sense of the results displayed before his eyes.

Orihara Izaya was an information broker. He had heard of his ideals and seen his capabilities. Through the numerous occasions they had worked together, he could see the brat in the man that claimed he was forever twenty-one, over and over again. He looked too young and worked too hard, for what? Shiki still couldn't tell. But he did know that Orihara-kun wouldn't trade the world for his job.

This aspect, Shiki could understand.

Five days ago, a girl overdosed in one of his clubs. She was a good customer for the longest time.

Four days ago, he called up Orihara Izaya for some information as one last solemn gift to her. Besides the police that tried to question him, he too was curious about the foreign drugs on her.

Three nights ago, the informant dropped by the office and gave him some advice.

Now, he was staring at an unlikely culprit printed on paper. He willed the meaning to surface because he couldn't piece together the deep kisses with the cruel joke or the mischievous smiles with the meaningless scheme.

He took one last drag from the cigarette before stubbing out the burnt out end in the ashtray.

Shiki didn't know how but he did know the informant managed to do it.

He breathed out evenly and the white smoke curled thickly around him.

000

Eight months back. Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The music was loud and it was invading his personal space like the girls that pressed in too close.

He couldn't smell their perfume, he could only smell the stink of sweat knitting closely with the adrenaline of their excitement. It was all too wild for his taste but they were just starting to fall for his charms, there was so much more he could do for that last flickering glow in their eyes.

He couldn't back out now, he already placed his drugs on their tongue with an overly intimate kiss.

It was dissolving in their system, he had to move on to the next step.

Their soft hands touched his skin, he nearly pulled back with years of reflex but he was already leaning in with practice. His bony hips dug into their shapely bodies and without a glance, he could already imagine their self-inflicted wounds beneath that thin veil of makeup. A façade that ran with tears when their Cinderella time was up.

Their full lips curled and curved.

He knew this was a flitting pastime, like all those beforehand.

But he always tried to make it last, tried to make the best out of the worst types of interests that had him hooked.

"Can't you see it?"

He sounded a little lost, sort of confused but it remained an accusation nonetheless.

He wrapped an arm around each of them and lazily pointed at the air in front of them. His eyes were half lidded and the clear red was now hazy, a deep burgundy in the dim yellow lights.

"Isn't that amazing?"

"What're you looking at, Izaya-san?" She pouted when she couldn't understand why his interest wasn't placed on her. She had tied-back black hair and she loved the way Izaya's arm wrapped around her shoulders.

"Can you not see it?" Izaya barely glanced at the two, he was far too mesmerized by what they couldn't see.

"The colors… and the lights."

The serene smile over his lips was enough.

Aside from that broken family and the mother and father they never believed in, Orihara Izaya was everything they knew.

He was just looking at air but they saw something in him that made them a true believer.

The girls looked at each other before focusing back on the empty space, their cherry lips split into a wide pair of twin grins. And then they nodded as they leaned into Izaya's arms, a soft murmur breaking through the music in the club.

"The colors are so pretty…"

And then they burst into giggles.

000

Five days later. Shinjuku, Tokyo.

He was teetering on the edge of autumn; summer had not yet let go. It was still clinging on to midday. His black t-shirt seemed suffocating and the belt around his waist felt restricting in the slight heat. His black hair fell into his blood red vision.

Yes, the sun was blazing.

A burning yellow that refused to flicker or dim.

The fire was blazing, warping his world into fragments he had yet to find time to piece together. He was holding on to too many things but there were hardly anything he still had a firm hold on. There were a lot of things he did but none he was ever good at. The only thing that he exceeded at was hurting people.

They jumped, he watched. They died, he lived. He had no honor.

He had lost his only intention and found a million excuses instead. But the saddest thing of all, he found a peace of mind within the messes they created.

What had he been searching for?

Orihara Izaya was on a busy Shinjuku road when he heard Shiki's voice.

"They are painkillers."

The stoic statement made him pause in his steps, an easy smile split into a grin as Shiki's low tenor washed over him.

"Ordinary over the counter painkillers."

Izaya turned around at Shiki's second accusation. They were standing quite a distance apart. Shiki was in his white suit and he stood almost ten feet away. Izaya took a step closer before running a hand through his hair, his silver rings glittering in the sun. "I take it Shinra gave you the report."

"If you had a hand in it then was the report all a joke too?" Shiki's voice had risen over the noise of the streets. The sound of the cars gave away and all that Izaya could hear were the words flowing from those lips.

He felt nostalgia. Could this be it?

"No, it's real. Shinra came to me for a drug diagnosis, I gave it to my secretary." He gave a reassuring smile as he continued to walk closer to the other man. Their distance was only a measly five feet. "She may have a serious case of brother-complex but she used to head up Yagiri Pharmaceuticals. Trust me, the report in your hands is authentic."

"Trust you, Orihara-kun?" Shiki let out a scoff as he narrowed his eyes on the boy nearly half his age. He shook his head at the smile and remembered the human being he had spend a night with five days ago. There was not a shred left in the other for him to hold back. "How arrogant of you to think that I wouldn't know you were the one distributing painkillers to girls."

Yes, he had plenty of that youthful arrogance but Shiki barely knew the half of it. Everything was a well planned indulgence to satisfy every dream that sparked into existence. He was fuelled by impulse but he never acted on one.

"That you're wrong, Shiki-san. I told you everything I knew. Besides, that game was long over." He was smiling and he never stopped. It was never a defence, it had always been a part of him. "I have nothing to do with what I did eight months back."

Shiki was not a virtuous human being, he was involved in too many shady businesses for him to live upright. Prostitution, drugs, money, firearms. Shiki knew of all the trades.

But even that was stretching it.

What Orihara Izaya had created was of something else. Something psychological, something even he wouldn't sink down to.

"Besides, I would have gotten embarrassed if you kept on digging into my past." The youth gave a warm laugh, thin shoulders shaking as he waved a hand off. And then he was still, even his laugh seemed to disappear from the air around them. His head was bowed, his voice was soft and there was only a solemn tinge remaining as he added. "Even if you did stumble on it by accident."

He seemed sorry, he seemed lonely. He sounded like he wished Shiki had cared enough to seek out his past.

"Who are you?"

But Shiki knew better than to believe the compulsive liar who always wanted his way.

"You mean who was he? He isn't me anymore. How do I put this…? It's more like I am him but evolved, you know, Shiki-san?"

Izaya looked up with glazed eyes, smug smirk stretching over his lips.

And Shiki knew he had made the right choice.

"You still don't remember who she is."

He knew he sounded downright disgusted.

"Wrong. I thought of her two nights ago." He shook his head with a smile as he gave a wag of his finger. When he graduated from Raijin, he decided that he was finished with small test subjects. He was ready for a larger sample and so he started with his fan club. Yes, unmistakably, she was a part of a careless project he had forgotten about when new interests arise. "She is a seed from my past and might I add, she had grown out quite nicely."

The red in his eyes was rusting away to reveal cold steel.

Shiki knew that there was nothing right with the young man in front of him. Perhaps Shiki had more morals than the informant who couldn't see people as anything outside of a love interest that he dumped his warped ideals into.

And strangely, the world was accepting him with opened arms.

The world had done something wrong and it had resulted in people like Orihara Izaya.

"Who are they?"

Throughout their entire conversation they hadn't said a word. Shiki gave a weary glance at the crowd of underage teenage girls behind Izaya. He had paid his tributes to that long-term buyer of his because there is nothing else Shiki could do for that girl.

"My fans."

Izaya's eyes glittered at the mention before wrapping an arm around a girl's waist. She smiled sweetly up at him before leaning even closer. Shiki felt a sick tightening within his guts, it was just wrong to see manipulation to grow this far.

This was it.

He tilted his head and smiled sweetly, almost like the him from five days ago.

"And I am their God, Shiki-san."

XXX Kuro

It made sense as I wrote it, I am not so sure now... DD: