"…" The small child looked up at Tsuki a moment before coughing violently, alerting the doctor back to him. Celty shook her helmet and moved away, leaving them to their own devices.
"Crap! Crap, crap, crap! He was not supposed to be out of that chamber."
"Who is THAT!" Shizuo shook, his hands balled into fists as he looked at the underground doctor. He was going to kill Shinra, then he was going to kill Izaya. How many fucking children had the louse had? The brunet and Tsuki looked about the same age. They had the same red eyes.
"Come here you." Shinra ignored Shizuo and motioned for the small child. His face was shadowed in displeasure, his serious expression in place. He was not amused by this in the least.
The boy looked up at him, then turning his gaze back to Tsukishima. Tsuki smiled at him and dropped to his knees, smiling. "A-are you okay? You look cold…"
"Tsuki-san, he can't speak." Shinra picked the boy up and sat him on a counter, the boy shivering as his nude body touched the cold steel. He curled up upon his side and looked at a wall, his eyes glazed over, almost looking like they were filled with self-loathing. "This guy I made about a few weeks ago. I had a couple pints of Izaya's um… well, I borrowed a few of his sperm cells I had frozen along with some modifications, injected into Shizuo's sperm."
"WHEN THE HELL-"
"It developed all the way until it was at infant stage, I killed the twin. It couldn't handle the progressing drug I injected. Although," Shinra scratched the back of his head, "I kinda goofed up on it. This boy here confirmed the correct formula. It wore off about a week ago and he's been spiraling the proverbial drain for a while. I tried direct IVs from Izaya, but he's dying. I give him a day or two tops."
"What?" Tsuki looked at the boy and back to Shinra in horror. "He's gonna d-die?"
"Shinra, I swear to god…" Shizuo couldn't even come up with the words to properly describe how stupid he was. The man needed to be forever jabbed by Celty, maybe have her leave him and never come back.
"I know! It was a stupid idea, but I was curious! Someone somehow managed to get Izaya to have a child with you! Izaya's a guy! It's impossible for two men to have a baby."
"So you did this as some stupid science experiment?" Shizuo gripped the wall, sending a couple paintings tumbling to the floor as the wall shuddered. Cracks formed upon the sterile blue walls.
"Shizuo! Think about it! I almost had no choice!"
"You had a great fu- YOU HAD A CHOICE!"
Shinra flinched, backing towards a corner, as far as he could get from Shizuo. "I just… I mean… Shizuo~ You know how I am!"
"Yeah! I should have known that you would pull something like this!"
"Shizuo~!" Shinra slinked down towards the floor, the blond ex-bartender closing the distance between them. Those mocha eyes darkening in more and more anger, his fists tightened until his knuckles turned pale from the lack of blood. He stalked forward, targeting his prey. His eyes almost dared the doctor to try something, just try to fight back and see what the hell would happen.
He would kill the man. He would kill him dead.
And then kill him again.
Yeah, Shizuo felt a sadistic smirk come upon his face, deepening the fear in the doctor's heart as he realized he'd seen that smirk on Izaya's face before…
Before some seriously scary things went down in the city.
Tsuki ignored the showdown going down in the room and looked at the boy lying on the counter. He looked so cold… He pulled his scarf off and wrapped it around the brunet. "You must be lonely."
The brunet looked over at him again before his gaze went to the scarf. His eyes focused in on the object as if he had never seen anything like it before.
"I know! We can go see vatti. He always knows what to do." With that, Tsuki pulled his jacket off and wrapped it around the brunet, looking around a moment before grabbing a towel and wrapping around his waist. He nodded and led the brunet from the room. The boy wobbled on his legs as he tried to keep up, the towel tripping him as they moved.
Shadows wrapped around them as they went to exit.
"Celty~" Tsuki fought against the shadows uselessly, "Hachi and I want to go see vatti!"
[Hachi?]
"I couldn't think of a name and thought it sounded kind of cool." Tsuki blushed, "eight is my favorite number."
[…Where is Shizuo and Shinra?]
"They're having an argument. Can we go see Vatti now?"
[You can't let him go out like that. Hold on a minute.]
The dullahan released them both a moment before the shadows surrounded the brunet. 'Hachi' looked at the shadows in worry a moment, twitching and squirming before the shadows moved away, the jacket Tsuki had lent him moving away to the blond as a red trimmed jacket formed around him.
[There. Now then, if you both want to go see Izaya, we will go together. I don't need you both getting lost.]
Tsuki nodded hastily, grabbing his companion's hand after tugging his jacket back on. The dullahan led them from the building, the sun glaring down at them both as they made it out into the streets.
'Hachi' looked about the streets in shock, his eyes wide as he surveyed the busy and loud surroundings.
"Isn't it cool?" Tsuki looked at him in excitement, enjoying being the boy's chauffeur.
[Tsuki, you both should come on. I have work to do after this.]
"Okay." Tsuki led the brunet to the motorcycle and Celty formed them both helmets. The brunet surveyed everything, his mind in overload. The smells, the sounds, especially the strange sounds that seemed to come forth from the blond boy; it was so strange. The blond huddled against his back as he held onto the neighing object. He looked down in wonder before looking at the strange machines around them. The warm arms around his waist tightened a bit as they turned a corner. "Please be careful, Miss Celty. I didn't like that turn."
The bright yellow object on the black figure nodded. More machines sped by them as they slowed. They moved to the side, a new neighborhood. Stranger buildings. He didn't understand any of it. He didn't know anything…
He didn't like these places or these things. They were like his life thus far. Cold, foreign, lifeless…
These creatures wandering passed him scared him, angered him… he hated them. The distaste for these strange creatures formed in him, all up until those brown eyes looked at him. The blond boy helped him off the neighing object and the brunet listened to the blond.
"Thank you Celty."
[It was nothing. You both get inside to Izaya's apartment now. Izaya has to miss you terribly.]
"Mhmm. Only a whole lot." Tsuki waved as the dullahan left and looked over to find the brunet waving to her as well. He grinned in happiness, "You must be really smart."
The brunet only stared at him opening his mouth, "…smart…"
"Yeah. Hachimenroppi. I'll call you that!"
"…"
Tsuki looked at him excitedly, "your name is Hachimenroppi, either Hachi or Roppi for short. Your name means your comp…compiten… well it means you're really smart at everything."
"…Roppi."
"You have a point… Roppi sounds better." The blond led him into the building, up to the elevator, all the way to the informant's apartment. He fumbled with his bag he had snuck from his father's hands and ignored his frustrating cast, opening the door and leading the brunet inside.
"Vatti!" Tsuki looked around before flinching, "oh… he's sleeping…"
The brunet looked over to stare. His image was sleeping upon the long object in the room. The man's face was in complete repose as he dozed.
"Vatti has to be really tired. Shinra-san gave him medicine that makes him sleepy as well as healing faster. He said it does other stuff, but I didn't understand."
Medicine, Roppi didn't like that word. That word meant pain. He didn't like pain. It was bad and he couldn't see what was happening when that feeling occurred. He looked at the sleeping man and felt…drawn.
Slowly, he let go of the blond boy's hand and moved forward; his eyes glued to the man. He reached out and touched him, watching as the man didn't seem to notice.
The bad man Shinra must have given him something bad too.
The blond boy, Tsukishima, walked over and climbed onto the object, cuddling against the man and patting his other side, "come on. We can get some sleep too."
Roppi blinked, looking at the duo. Was this okay? He was never allowed to get close to anyone. The doctor had never let him get close to do anything. He would flinch whenever he tried to even touch him, as though his touch was going to break him.
"Roppi? What's the matter?" Tsukishima frowned at him, "vatti is really nice. Come on."
The small hand reached out for him, that beaming smile messing with him. Roppi looked at the boy, the boy that went against everything that had been inscribed into him since his birth. Trust, touch, a name…
He didn't understand, he couldn't form the words to understand what he was seeing or thinking. His pale hand reached out and took the blond's hand into his. The hand wrapped around him gently. It tugged him up upon the man and Roppi watched the blond cuddle against the man's side, mimicking the motion only because he didn't know what else to do.
He had never been free before of that room, the room of cold and steel.
~.~
Izaya opened his eyes as his phone rang on the table.
His mind a haze, he flipped the phone open and answered, cuddling the objects against his side to him as he spoke, "Moshi moshi."
"Izaya," the protozoan was on the other end, "please tell me Tsuki is with you."
"Hmm?" Izaya's eyes widened a moment before he felt something tug on his shirt, forcing him to look down and inevitably sigh in relief. "Yeah, he's here…" The informant's gaze drifted to his other side to pause, curious… "With a companion."
"Yeah…" the blond sounded aggravated, "we're killing Shinra."
"Now why would I kill our dear friend Shinra?"
"He's been experimenting, that thing with Tsuki is his fucking around with our sperm. That thing is what he came up with."
Izaya felt the child nuzzle against him and snorted at his outfit, "he's dressed like me."
"…what?"
The informant set the phone on the table and picked the kid up, watching as bleary red eyes looked back at him. It was at a spinning image of his child self. The boy reached out for him and his raspy voice came out, "…vatti…"
There went the paternal instincts again. Izaya shook his head and cuddled both him and Tsuki close, snatching up his phone as he laid back down. "He's clearly not human." Said child shut his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
"Course not, Shinra-"
"He's not a monster either… I think we should keep him."
The other end of the line went silent a moment as Izaya imagined the ex-bartender was trying to realize what had just happened. How amusing, the brute was confused. "Shinra said he was going to die within the next couple days, Tsuki-"
"Tsuki-chan has us, ne? He'll be fine."
"He shouldn't have to watch the experiment die-"
"It's an important life lesson, besides," Izaya began to stroke both boy's hair and grinned as both fidgeted in their sleep, swatting at his hand; "the kid seems fine to me."
"Wha-"
"I'm kind of still tired though. We're napping. Bye, Shizu-chan!" He laughed as he hung up and nuzzled the duo in his arms.
"Can we keep him, vatti?" Tsuki's little eyes opened and looked up at him seriously.
"Of course we can! You know I can never say no to you." Izaya grinned, "besides, he knows where we live now. If we dump him in the streets, he'll just come back again. That's how pets work."
"Roppi-san's not a pet. He's my friend."
"Roppi?"
Tsuki nodded, "I named him Hachimenroppi."
The informant laughed harder, his whole body shaking from the extent of his amusement, "of course, of course! With him looking so much like me, of course he would be intelligent." Eight faces, six arms… what a strange name for a child. Izaya vaguely wondered if Tsuki understood how dark that name could be seen. How interesting and unexpected. He could afford to feed another mouth for a while, it would be fascinating to see how this little friendship between the duo worked.
~.~
A/N: Bah~! I'm tired. I stayed up just to ensure you all received this to go with your morning tea. –or evening tea-
Review~ I need something to wake up to as well. –or see during the day-
