When he finally wakes up to a splitting headache, he isn't restrained. Maybe Shinra decided it wouldn't be helpful, maybe he just took pity on Izaya, but either way he's relieved. He's on the living room couch, coat folded neatly on the coffee table next to him. His mind is fogged up, head aching. It's light outside, bright and stinging.
He gets up, wanders around to see if Shinra is around. He isn't, and neither is Celty. There is a note, however, on the kitchen table next to a small bottle of painkillers.
Dear Orihara-kun! Celty is back! r, yay! She's so lovely, so kind! Oh how I've missed her! Please be sure to take ONLY ONE of those pills when you need and they should last at least 3 hours. Shizuo-kun is still sleeping, and if you mess with him again Celty says she'll cut you! You've been asleep for about 12 hours, or at least that's how long you'd slept when we left. You can see yourself out.
Underneath the note was a little doodle of Celty surrounded by a ridiculous amount of hearts. Izaya huffs a laugh, grabs the pills, and heads off to Shizuo's room. Izaya moves to grab his knife, he left it under Shizuo's pillow in case the beast woke up, and notices the beast is… blushing? His face is certainly red, and he's grumbling quiet, unintelligible words.
"Just what are you dreaming about…?" He asks quietly, pinching Shizuo's red cheek. He does it harder than intended, and Shizuo growls a little in his coma.
Silently, he makes his way out of the room and out of the apartment. It's a quiet ride home, early morning train filled mostly with businessmen and teenagers dressed up for saturday outings. A few kids, maybe gang members going by how all of them have the same red chain necklaces, glare at him but make no moves. His phone buzzes, and a glace at it reveals his name in a few new Dollars threads.
Python- Orihara is back, no sign of Heiwajima though! I think he killed him! :o
Smokerz- Seriously, anyone want weed?
Yumi Gumi- Orihara Izaya, Headless Rider, Shizuo Heiwajima still missing- IS IT ALIENS?
Fangurl- Orihara Izaya, Psycho or total cutie?
Yumi Gumi- No sign of Ikebukuro's monster for weeks!
Ami- RIP the strongest men in Ikebukuro!
Smokerz- Anyone wanna buy some weed?
He stops scrolling at that point, as the rest is just old news. It's his stop anyway.
Once he gets home he mostly lays around, feeling sluggish and tired. Those pills have something odd in them, something that makes him just want to lay in bed all day and forget everything. It isn't like him, as someone typically buzzing with manic energy always just under the surface. He could scour the internet, see if there might be a cause for this but he knows what he'll find. The symptoms, causes, and remedies for Depression.
'I'm not depressed.'
He should be out, finding out what's gone on since he's been gone. He needs to look up those kids with the red jewelry, needs to get the scoop on recent underground activity, and he lowkey wants to buy some of that weed. Instead he watches cartoons. Okay, he isn't perfect alright? Even Gods need breaks right?
'Breaks aren't days in bed and nights doing the same but with the man you hate.'
He ignores himself. He's watching reruns of a children's anime, something about a magical pink haired girl and her friends. It's cute, and he especially likes the borderline pedophilic villain in the episode.
'You're sick. Well, sicker than usual.'
Geez, he's insulting himself now. How pathetic. He switches the channel to the news, even though is far more boring and not nearly detailed enough, to play a little lazy catch up. Apparently bodies are being found all around Tokyo, teeth missing, fingertips burned, and different evidence found every time, if any is even left behind.
The only thing left behind that's the same, aside the burned fingers and missing teeth/hair, of course, is a spray painted symbol. It's amature, often painted over the victims and therefore distorted. The news anchors are speculating on what it could be, throwing out ideas like a necklace or a goose head. Izaya, however, know's exactly what it is.
It's a noose.
He doesn't go see Shizuo that night.
The next day passes uneventful, hours blurring into each other and he can't do much of anything all day. He's still sore but the bruises have faded away and there's no need for the painkillers. He's feeling better, a little more alive and a little less numb. He'd wired Shinra money earlier in the day and called Namie to tell her not to come in to work. He'd gone out and had sushi at Simon's, bumped into Mikado and teased him about Anri, and managed to get some exercise in a park.
He's back home now, feeling better and a fresh, hot coffee to keep him warm. August has been surprisingly chilly, and nights of sitting next to Shizuo, who is a human hot water bottle, he finds himself shivering even from the slight breeze of an open window. As night falls it gets colder, obviously, and with just how much the temp drops it makes him wonder if a harsh winter is ahead.
"Winter is coming..." He says out loud, as seriously as he can.'Heh.' He loves Game Of Thrones. The violence, betrayal, drama, that little asshole prince- he loves it, all of it. It presents his humans in an accurate way and puts them in political chaos, his favorite kind! Plus it's a great way to keep his English polished.
His phone buzzes, but he ignores it in favor of the new strings of information he's been digging up for a client. Well, more like on. The guy is hardcore into authentic catholic school girls and has paid him to find some churches with weak security. Instead, Izaya has decided to send him one near a police station and tip the cops off. Just for kicks.
He's too busy to care about whatever notifications are popping up. It could be something exciting but he'd rather screw with the pervert right now. Besides, after this he wants to play around as Kanra.Or he could just use Kanra to pretend to be a real catholic school girl...
He spends the rest of the evening trolling a pervert.
He doesn't go see Shizuo for the second night in a row.
The day after that goes slower, with nothing to do all day until his dollars dedicated phone starts going off. Flipping it open, it turns out that there are quite a few new threads. Over something he never would have imagined. He'd put it back down but… well, it's not everyday that an entire city loses their shit over an ass. 'Ha!' A decent ass, admittedly, but an ass nonetheless. He can't see who's ass it is, no one is saying, but everyone is going crazy and it's fairly amusing. He opens up a random public chat.
Yumi Gumi- OH LORD! OH LORD! WE'VE BEEN BLESSED WITH...DAT AAAAAASSSSSS!
Python- Fuckin homo perverts, man.
Smokerz- If soap hits the floor is the floor clean or the soap dirty?
Catgal- Don't be like that! Maybe he's got dementia or something! Wasn't he is a hospital down? :( Poor guy
Yumi Gumi- DAT ASS FAT ASS MAN ASS
Fangurl- I ship it.
8ballbaby- Ship what?
Smokerz- Is the S or C silent in "scent."
Fangurl- The ass and Yumi.
Kanra- Anyone know who this guy is? :o
Fangurl- All I know is he's downtown Shinjuku, he just got off the train
8ballbaby- I'm there now, he's going inside an apartment building, he's probably a drunkard!
Yumi Gumi- YUS QUEEN
8ballbaby- XD
He clicks to a new chat, but it's mostly just more ass. At one point he see's a very blurry picture of the man from the front, but all he can tell is that his hair is light and his gown is really much too short. 'Much, much too short.'
He's also, judging by the scenery, close to Izaya's own apartment. He considers going out to see if he can't find this ass man, deciding eventually that yes, yes he does. Throwing on his coat and making sure he has his knife and a few phones, he leaves his lights on and opens the door.
He comes face to face with one Shizuo Heiwajima. He backs up, retreating fast on instinct and tensing to dodge a punch that never comes. Instead Shizuo just stands there, looking numb and lost, staring at Izaya like he's expecting something. He also happens to match the pictures on Izaya's phone perfectly, and he can't help but notice.
"Good lord, was it your ass I've been seeing all over the dollars website?" Izaya asks rather bluntly, gesturing to the thin hospital gown Shizuo has apparently been wearing all the way from Shinra's to Shinjuku. Shizuo reacts much the way he expects, his eyes bulge and hands shoot back to pull the gown closed even though no one is around but Izaya who is in front of him and not behind. 'Idiot.'
"FUCKING HELL! Fuck! No wonder people were taking fucking pictures, damn it! I'll kill Shinra!" Shizuo yells, face red. Izaya can't help the burst of laughter, doubling over with the force. "Damn it! Stop laughing, flea!"
"I can't!" He gasps out. This is gold, the big string Heiwajima Shizuo walking here with his little bushy on display for the whole city! Izaya doesn't even care that he wasn't there when Shizuo woke up, he's too busy laughing. Even Shizuo must find it a little funny, he's smiling rather warmly at Izaya.
This is, until his face changes to display anxiety instead. Izaya manages to calm down, after all he can laugh at shizuo all he wants for the rest of both their lives now. He is never going to let this go. Maybe he should start a new nickname for him, maybe something like... Breezy butt? Eh, he'll work on it.
"Flea, now listen... I, um, I don't know if you know where I've been but-" Izaya cuts him off there, anger rising up and replacing any previous joy.
"Ah yes. Killing me, weren't you?" Izaya asks, leaning against his doorframe. Maybe he's a little bitter. "Shinra told me. Couldn't handle the constant failure so you turned to a game, hmm?" For now he won't reveal just how much he knows, considering he was by the beasts side for two weeks. Shizuo might get the wrong idea, after all.
"You... Listen." Shizuo starts, something awkward and lost radiating off his frame. He's not himself, but who would be after two weeks of... Well Izaya doesn't know what but something about the look in his eyes tells him it wasn't great.
"You were gone for two weeks and I was getting worked up. Figured you were up to something. Hell, you probably were and I just haven't found out. And Shinra had asked me over and-" Shizuo stops there, cutting himself off this time. Izaya takes that as his cue.
"Yes, yes, I know. Well, how was it? Did you enjoy it? You clearly just woke up, ne? You must be here to do it for real." He was expecting this, in the beginning. Figured Shizuo would wake up within a day or earlier and one over right away to strangle him. He'd been preparing for it, excited somewhat even for their final battle, but now he's just angry and filled with contempt.
"I'm not." Shizuo answers, brown eyes honest and clear. He doesn't look like the sort of person who'd be in their right mind, wearing nothing but a hospital gown and messy brown/blonde hair matted. But Izaya knows when he's telling the truth, hell he doesn't need to read him at all. Shizuo never lies, he wouldn't start now.
"Then why are you here? I'm busy Shizu-chan." That's a lie, but that's okay. Shizuo is honest, whereas Izaya is not. He never is.
"I just...that is... It was hell, being in that simulation thing." Shizuo sighs, and Izaya straightens up at that. He's expecting him to brag about his victory over Izaya, gorey details about his virtual death. "Nothing made sense, I had weird visions, fuck I'm pretty sure someone kissed me at one point-" Oh god, he must never know.
"Do I look like I care? Get to the point, monster. Being around you and your bare ass this long is so annoying it actually hurts." Izaya snaps, watching with fascination at how Shizuo's eyes go wide and haunted for a moment. If possible, when his eyes refocus he looks even more uncertain than before.
"Izaya... Do you hate me?" Shizuo asks him, serious.
"Obviously." There's no hesitation, no insincerity this time. 'What a stupid question.'
"I see. That's good." Shizuo doesn't sound so much like himself, looks more like a child who can't understand why a big feral doggie is being mean to them. He crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow at Shizuo questioningly. He doesn't get anything else after a moment, and decides to take lead of the conversation again. 'I can't believe he's finally awake and acting this stupid.' Is disappointing, really.
"Is that what you're here for? To confirm something that you've known for 6 years?" He asks, disappointment lacing his tone. Shizuo hardly seems to notice.
"8 years flea, you're not 21." Shizuo corrects, almost smiling. Izaya just rolls his eyes at that, huffing. 'I'm forever 21, Shizu-chan.' He's getting sick of this, he wants Shizu-chan to either fight him already or go home. This isn't the beast he's used to and its honestly off putting.
"Look Shizu-chan. We can battle if you really want but I'm not doing it in my apartment and I doubt you want even more people staring at your ass. Unless Shizu-chan is into that sort of thing." He drawls, lacing his tone with the usual amount of sarcasm that always makes Shizuo try to choke him. It doesn't seem his attack is very effective, though.
"No." Shizuo's answers. "I just wanted to say that," He pauses here, taking in a deep breath. There's the letting in his expression, something that says his next words won't be the truth, for once. Shizuo looks to him, eyes trained carefully on him and nothing else.
"I hate you, and now that I'm back, if you step foot in 'Bukuro after tonight then I'll kill you. Got it?" Typical Shizuo. If it weren't for the detachment of complete numbness obvious in his gaze Izaya would believe him.
"Of course, Shizu-chan." Izaya sighs, obviously not intending to do what he says. He moves back, closing the door in Shizuo's face and pulling out his phone. The idiot looks dead on his feet and probably needs some pants. Izaya already has the pictures, and he doesn't need anyone noticing the idiot coming out of his apartment sans pants.
He hears Shizuo cursing outside and makes the logical jump as to what is angering him. "I texted Celty to come pick you up. She's bringing pants." He calls through the door. Shizuo doesn't say anything in response, but he does hear him walking away.
Izaya doesn't watch at the window for the headless rider's arival. He feels numb, closed off. He waited for weeks to see Shizuo, awake anyway, but right now it doesn't really feel like he's actually seen him. He's seen a shell- a ghost, really. It's annoying and depressing and he just...
'I really hate you.' He thinks, ignoring the heavy weight of nothing sinking in his chest.