Shizuo sat on the windowsill, a cigarette hanging from his lips. He exhaled, and watched the smoke dissipate in the crisp night air. The breeze that until a week ago was soft and warm with summer heat now felt sharp on his bare arms. He rubbed at the chilled skin before relaxing once again, yawning wide. He heard Izaya coming back into the bedroom, muttering a song that didn't conceal the slight uneven gait of his injured leg. In the past days Izaya had discarded the crutches for good, and Shizuo swore that in few weeks, Izaya would make him bite the dust, his body healed that fast.

"Here's your milk," Izaya said, and sat on the windowsill in front of him. He held two mugs, mismatched unsold stocks from the minimart, one with a lurid red text screaming HELLO GORGEOUS!, the other with the outline of black cats with tails that looked like question marks.

"Thanks," Shizuo replied, folding his fingers across the cat mug.

Like that time on the boat trip, they were both awake, surrounded by the stillness of night. Back then, Shizuo had witnessed Izaya having a nightmare for the first time ever. Like every day since, tonight Shizuo woke to Izaya tossing and turning, in the grips of a bad dream. Shizuo was a heavy sleeper, he knew that some distance between them in bed would be enough to keep himself from waking, but he refused to do it - he didn't leave an inch of mattress between them anymore.

Shizuo lost his temper to every trivial thing, it was a part of him that would never change, but waking in the dead of night because of his former enemy didn't manage to piss him off, somehow. It didn't even make him complain. He found himself drowsy but calm, at peace somehow, while they waited for sleep together. Some kind of velvet energy settled upon Izaya and him in those moments. It was like smoke, blended into the air, though it lingered in the silence between them with bold familiarity, invisible yet real. It smelled like salt from the sea, soap from the sheets and Izaya's scent - especially like Izaya's scent. It was that good, that intoxicating; it made Shizuo think of second chances.

Then he thought of Kasuka, ever-present in his dreams, a silent frame in the crackling fire.

The same fire haunted Izaya too, making him clench at the scars on his legs and jerk in his sleep. Sometimes, in his nightmares, Izaya called for his mother. Shizuo understood about the fire, he dreamed about it too, but he wanted to ask Izaya why his mother was present. It wasn't out of curiosity; he wanted to help him somehow, even if he didn't know how to do it.

He took a sip of milk and asked:"Oi, Izaya, what does your mum look like?"

Izaya tipped his head to one side. Shizuo braced himself for a retort, but Izaya just stared at him in a neutral look. "That's a strange question," Izaya said, fiddling with the mug. "Fair skin, black hair, slender. I took after her, I think."

Shizuo studied Izaya's features, trying to imagine how Izaya would look like if he was a woman. He found it too hard.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Izaya asked, lips stretched in a smirked. "Are you trying to imagine her?"

"Maybe."

Izaya giggled. "We should buy a wig, some designer clothes, some make-up – I would look like the spitting image of her!" Then he shrugged, and added: "Her eyes were dark brown, though."

Izaya took a sip of coffee, and when his gaze shifted back to Shizuo he went wide-eyed, the flashy mug as though frozen halfway to his mouth. "You've got ashes all over your trousers, Shizu-chan. And stop looking at me like that, it's kind of creepy."

"'Her eyes were,'" Shizuo quoted."I didn't know your mum was dead."

Izaya rolled his eyes. "God, don't be overdramatic, it happened long time ago. Don't worry, I don't cry for her. I think I've never cried for her, is it that bad? I never got used to her presence, and I thank her for that - she never gave me the chance to miss her."

Shizuo didn't know what to say, and Izaya clicked his tongue. "Poor pitiful flea, is that what you are thinking, hmm? Do you think I became like this because of her neglecting me? Wrong. I became what I am because I wanted to. I choose my own path, every step of it, where it came from and where it would lead."

"I know," Shizuo said, softly."But don't you miss her, even sometimes?"

"It happened long time ago, I'm way over it."

"What about your father? Does he miss her?"

Izaya shrugged. "He's gone too."

Shizuo didn't reply immediately. "What did he look like?"

"I wonder if this is a kind of question time," Izaya sighed, shaking his head. "Hmm, I remember he looked so tall to me… Though, I don't think he was that tall, actually. He was definitely shorter than you. Look, I can't even sit comfortably, your legs take up all the space!" Izaya's bare foot poked at Shizuo's ankle. "You're way too tall, it's unfair."

"I look so tall because you're a bit of a shrimp, Izaya."

A smirk pulled at Izaya's lips now. He playfully kicked Shizuo's thigh and then stretched his leg out over it, shifting to find a comfortable position on the narrow windowsill. Shizuo folded his fingers across Izaya's ankle, and drew his thumb across the bone here. With a dark sweep of eyelashes, Izaya's eyes closed, the mug forgotten in his lap. When Shizuo's fingers slid under the hem of Izaya's long pants and ran into the ridges of Izaya's scars, Izaya flinched.

"Does it still hurt?" Shizuo asked almost immediately, removing his hand.

"Sometimes," Izaya whispered, his voice low, his gaze now somewhere out of the window. He paused, and for a moment Shizuo thought that Izaya was going to confide in him how it felt to have someone touching him there, if what hurt him sometimes was physical pain or the sight of his scars, what it meant to Izaya to be dealing with them.

An unsettling awareness swelled in Shizuo's chest now - the more he got to know Izaya, the more he saw the humanity in him. It had always been natural for Shizuo, loathing Izaya for being a flea, an alien, a true villain, and it was so much easier wanting to kill someone like that, someone who wasn't human at all. But it seemed like this was a simplistic perspective on his nemesis, because under his protective permafrost, under his quirky people watching hobby and his hysterical laughs, deep into his core, Izaya was human.

Izaya looked away from the window, straight into Shizuo's eyes, making Shizuo feel acutely aware of their proximity. Their legs touched, gazes locked; he smelled Izaya's scent tangled with the aroma of coffee. Shizuo heard the sounds their house made - wood creaked, crickets shrilled in the grass outside, leaves rustled in the breeze, and closer, so much closer, he heard their breath, Izaya's and his own, tangled. Izaya was staring at him now, his gaze occasionally drifting to the lower part of Shizuo's face, as though he was lip-reading words that Shizuo wasn't speaking.

A sleep line left from the creases on Shizuo's shirt ran down Izaya's cheek, reaching his mouth. Izaya moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue and Shizuo's heart felt fluttery, hot in his chest.

Suddenly, his own thoughts scared him. He wanted to do so much more to Izaya than hold him while sleeping and spend their days together in something that resembled friendship way too much. He wanted to slid his hand along the nape of Izaya's neck, lean closer and kiss him, on the cheek and down to his jaw, on the corner of his mouth, on his lips, everywhere.

Seconds passed, yet Shizuo couldn't bring himself to move. Izaya, on the other hand, yawned."Time for my beauty sleep." He stood up and ruffled Shizuo's bangs, the fondness in the gesture so teasing that Shizuo flinched. Shizuo's cheeks felt warm but the moment was gone like many others before, leaving Shizuo wondering where the hell they came from and, mostly, what he supposed to do with them.

"Come here," Shizuo said, once he reached Izaya in bed, hugging him with a bone-crushing grip and just a little sway.

"Just for few minutes though," Izaya drawled, his voice sleepy across Shizuo's neck."You're too warm, it feels like melting."

"We'll pull away the sheets, then," Shizuo whispered, laying the palm of his hand to the curve of Izaya's neck.

When he touched the soft skin there, he remembered how it had felt, strangling Izaya almost to death. Soon, he must do it again and, this time, he would go through it. Though when he ran his hands along Izaya's spine, the only thought was the one he'd had so many times: What about just living like this?

Shizuo liked living here. The house was small but cozy, they had started to accumulate stuff in it as though making a nest. They bought the mugs, and books that piled up on the empty bookshelf in the living room, titles like Social Psychology or Cocktails for Dummies or Cat Chat: A Guide to Understanding Feline Language. There were monochromatic clothes in the wardrobe, bottles of milk in the fridge, Shizuo's king checkmated on the chessboard, Alfred's toys stuck under the furniture.

Living here was peaceful. They still bickered, of course, but the anger had softened around the edges, as Shizuo had always desired. Promises of death emptied out until they felt like the seashells they picked up on the shoreline, light and hollow, fragile relics from the past.

There were times where Shizuo missed Kasuka so much that he only desired vengeance, and if he died while doing it, much better.

And then, there were moments where he caught himself staring at Izaya's profile. The sea glistened behind him, wind ruffled his black hair.

Izaya was complicated and contradictory, human at heart. Shizuo couldn't look anywhere else, and he didn't know what to do with himself anymore.


"Do you want a suggestion? Relax." The disembodied voice startled Shizuo, bringing him back to reality.

"Really, Rika-chan, chill. You're going to scare him off if you don't calm down a bit," the same, thin voice said. This time, Shizuo linked it to its owner.

Two girls sat with their arms folded on the counter that stretched in the dim lit pub. Shizuo had the impression he had seen them before but, well, he bartended at a pub, he had seen plenty of people. Besides, those girls didn't have something particular in their look to imprint their image in Shizuo's memory – they looked like normal girls in their late teens. The only particular that caught Shizuo's attention was that they wore perfume, a breath of vanilla that stood out amongst the heavy beer smell.

One of them, the girl called Rika, pillowed her head on her bent arm, her voice almost lost under the recorded saxophone notes that danced across the wooden walls: "You know, I've never met someone like him. Someone this charming and smart, someone that understands us so much."

"I know, he's too perfect to be real," her friend sighed. "I can't believe we're going to meet him."

Shizuo lifted an eyebrow. He started mixing a cocktail, and the sound of ice rattling in the shaker covered the girls' voices. Most likely, this was just a girl's night out but Shizuo couldn't help feeling a shiver running down his spine. It was more like a premonition, the ghost of a sensation that left his blood freezing.

"Something stinks," he mumbled.

The issue was that this situation reminded him so much the typical reaction that girls had toward Izaya. Back when they were in the army, Shizuo often spotted Izaya strolling with some young woman, usually more than one, often a whole handful. The flea liked to mess with them like they were his guinea pigs, or to use them for some shady purpose, just to discard them like yesterday's trash once he grew bored. Shizuo didn't know the details, but he had sworn, then, that nothing good would come from idolizing Orihara Izaya, and those girls worshipped Izaya like he was some kind of god.

Unlike Izaya, Shizuo had never been very popular with girls.

Before he joined the army, at the age of sixteen, Shizuo had attended school. At first, girls liked his look and his lone wolf allure - they probably fantasized that he was the tormented guy they could save with their love - but this adoration of theirs lasted up until the first time they saw him lose his temper and throw whatever was within arms' reach. In that moment they came to understand that there was nothing romantic or cool about his solitude, and that his self-hatred was too deeply rooted to be wiped away with coffee shop dates or kisses under the rain. Besides, Shizuo never approached them. Well, at first he did reply to their heart-shaped gazes with a shy smile; he stopped doing it soon, because no matter how much he tried to change himself, it was as though everything he did lead to a single result. He had always ended up alone, the taste of blood in his mouth, his breath ragged and some bone broken.

With time, he simplified the equation: no matter who, what, or when, he would end up hurting everyone, and nobody would come back to offer a forgiveness that he felt he didn't deserve.

Through the years, only one person kept searching for him, over and over again, even after the sheer violence of the monster inside of him had awoken.

But Izaya didn't come back to love him.

Izaya came back to torment him, to fill Shizuo's mind with nothing but him.

Like water sneaking into the lungs of a drowning man, Izaya always claimed ownership over Shizuo's thoughts. No matter that so many things had changed, Izaya's presence in Shizuo's mind was always the same, totalizing and unsettling. It stole his breath.


Shizuo arrived at home early in the morning. His shoulders felt tense, his ears rang; between that strange sensation he had felt with those two girls keeping him on edge and his hunger, he felt, overall, unsettled. He hoped to find Izaya already asleep, curled up in his usual cat-like fashion. He liked coming home after work just to find Izaya sleeping like a kid. He would hug him then, molding his body to Izaya's, and they would sleep like spoons in the cutlery drawer.

He found Izaya in the kitchen instead, preparing coffee. "Hi, Shizu-chan," he said.

Shizuo muttered a greeting and sprawled on one chair, outstretching his arms on the dining table. "I'm so damn tired," he drawled.

"Are you hungry too?" Izaya asked.

"A bit," Shizuo yawned.

"Show me your gratitude, Shizu-chan," Izaya chirped as he pulled out of the fridge a black package. "I bought sushi tonight, and I left some for you. Such a considerate housemate I am, aren't I?"

Shizuo replied with a soft chuckle that turned into a "What the hell is this?!" as soon as he saw what the black box contained. There were just few remaining pieces, all so colorful that reminded Shizuo more of pastries than sushi. He lifted a eyebrow, evaluating if he was hungry enough to try it.

"Strange isn't it?" Izaya said. "But this is the best sushi the village has to offer. The sushi boxes at the minimarket are such a big no-no! Do you know that the cook is Russian? He's very creative too! Come on, try it!"

Shizuo washed his hands and popped a multicolored maki into his mouth. He chewed on it and, after few moments, he dashed to drink water right from the faucet. "What the hell!" Shizuo blurted out, wiping his mouth with his shirt's sleeve. He knitted his eyebrows at the spicy taste lingering on his tongue."Does that Russian guy know that wasabi needs to be handled carefully?"

The flea was laughing now, holding his stomach and tipping his head back. Shizuo cocked his head and smirked. "Ah-ha, very funny, Izaya-kun! I bet it was all a plan of yours, hah?"

"Not at all, this was unexpected, though very satisfying!" Still giggling, Izaya leaned in to examine the remaining pieces in the black box. "Hmm, I suggest you try the one with ham. In my opinion, it's probably safe for your childish tastes!"

"Hah?! My tastes are not—"

Izaya's gaze fell on him, and Shizuo felt his body growing tense, words tripping on his tongue. "Trust me," Izaya said, and handed an awkward looking nigiri to Shizuo. "Here, take it."

Shizuo exhaled and rolled his eyes. He grabbed the piece and chewed on it. Satisfied?! I don't like it, of course, he tried to convey as he watched Izaya with a blank stare, even as he thought: god, this is some good shit—no, wait, this is so damn delicious… Okay, this is the best sushi of my life.

"So you don't like it, hmm?" Izaya whispered, eyes flashing and mouth crooking up in a smirk. "Too bad that there's another one in the box," he whispered, and drank a sip of coffee from his HELLO GORGEOUS! mug.

"If you're gonna toss it I can make the effort to finish it, of course," Shizuo mumbled.

"Hah! So you liked it!" Izaya blurted out, the coffee sloshing in the mug.

"What?! I don't—"

"So we should buy it again! Let's buy it again!" Izaya exclaimed. He was sitting on the table, kicking his feet, looking like an excited child. Then he winced – it was barely visible on his features, just a thin line forming between his eyebrows.

"Your knee must hurt pretty bad now, hmm?" Shizuo said. "You can ask me to go with you anytime, so you can lean on me a bit if you're tired."

"Don't worry about me, Shizu-chan," Izaya breathed over the rim of his mug.

Shizuo leaned closer, sliding the palm of his hand down Izaya's wrist to the back of his hand, and said: "We should go out for dinner, sometimes." Izaya was looking at him with his head tipped to one side, his eyebrows darting up for a moment and making him look so sincerely surprised. Shizuo's whole face felt hot, so he hugged Izaya, leaning his chin on top of Izaya's head, trying to blow off steam. "No cheap sandwiches or milkshakes or the stuff you hate, I promise. You can choose whatever you want."

He braced himself for an, "Eeeeh, are you asking me out, Shizu-chan?!" but Izaya just said: "Hmm, if I choose the place, I guess it's fine."

"Yeah, whatever you like," Shizuo muttered. The hug was uncomfortable – Izaya was all tension, and the mug pressed into Shizuo's stomach. Shizuo breathed in, inhaling the smell of coffee and Izaya's scent.

Suddenly he stepped back, shifting his weight as he forced himself to relax against the heat of anger in his chest.

Tonight he sensed a new smell on Izaya: vanilla perfume.

"You weren't in the village just to buy sushi," Shizuo said, his voice coming out so low pitched that it surprised him.

There was a nervous energy in the kitchen now, one that was entirely too familiar. It was the usual tension that there had been between Izaya and him since they met - the impendent violence, asleep now, but ready to arise as soon as they stepped closer to each other.

Izaya shrugged. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"There were two girls in the pub tonight, wearing that same perfume that I smell on you. 'sides, they were talking about meeting with someone they liked so much, that could understand them and all that shit. That someone was you, wasn't it?!"

Izaya clicked his tongue, and there wasn't heat in his voice when he mocked: "You know, Shizu-chan, sometimes you should go out and have fun, so you'll stop wasting your time thinking about what I may or not do. I don't know, date someone for example. Do you want a suggestion?"

"Shut up. I know what your fun is supposed to be, louse. I wouldn't be so pissed if your main interest was women, Izaya... But your fun isn't being in their company, hmm?! The only thing that matters to you is that fucking human observation! Are you gonna mess their life up?! No, are you gonna mess this village up before you-"

Izaya was expressionless like a mannequin when he said: "Die? Before you'll kill me?"

Shizuo's fists clenched. "I knew something stunk! It was you! I swear, louse, I will do anything to get in your way- Aaaah, who gives a shit! Do you know what I'm gonna do to stop you?! I'll kill you! And I'll kill you NOW!"

Izaya dodged the punch slipping sideways from the table. He reached the kitchen counter, and opened the cutlery drawer. Shizuo realized what was happening a moment too late, when a blast of air swished on his cheek. Then, he felt pain. For a moment he just stood as though frozen, then rage came like a fire, burning hot and fast. He spat out:

"YOU FUCKING FLEA!"

When Shizuo lifted his gaze to search for Izaya, he didn't see him. Izaya had managed to turn off the lights, and darkness enveloped the room. Shizuo heard another swish; he dodged it this time, and the knife hit the wall at his back.

"You want to die that bad, hah?! So come here, flea! Come here and let me kill you!"

Floorboards creaked when Izaya escaped from the kitchen into the dark living room. Shizuo followed him, stomping. A toy mouse abandoned on the floor almost made him slip, and he swore under his breath. Shizuo expected Izaya to laugh, but Izaya was silent.

"You've got something big in mind, isn't it? Something spectacular before the end! What the fuck, louse! Do you think you're a god?! Do you know that you're no different from the people you like to observe?"

A thread of light cut through the floor, and shadows stretched over Shizuo's sight. He stepped forward, and his fist closed across Izaya's shirt. Even in the dark, Shizuo could find him anywhere.

When his other hand lifted, fist closed tightly to punch Izaya, Shizuo felt something stinging his neck - Izaya had just pointed a blade at his carotid.

"It looks like draw," Izaya whispered, his voice deep, coffee hot on his breath.

Despite the calm demeanor, Izaya was breathing hard, and Shizuo knew that he must kill him now. Tomorrow or the next month, Izaya's last breath would be forced out by his hands - so why wait? He couldn't dodge this. He promised. Izaya had already chosen, he wanted to die, and Shizuo was the only one wishing they would keep living like this.

"This isn't a draw at all," Shizuo thundered.

Anger flowed white-hot in his veins, and Shizuo thanked it, because it allowed him to grab Izaya's hands fast and hard enough to not let the blade sink into his neck any further. Then he pushed him against the bookshelf and Izaya exhaled out loud; the books they had bought fell off with loud thumps.

Shizuo leaned closer. "Remember it. You're no different from them," he whispered across the tendons of Izaya's neck, softly, a direct contrast to the firm grip across Izaya's wrists. Izaya kicked him and tried to wiggle out. Shizuo tightened the hold. "You're human."

Izaya laughed in shuddering puffs across Shizuo's cheek and jerked as he tried to break free, to hurt Shizuo back. The palm of Shizuo's hands shifted down Izaya's wrists, exposing the skin under the long sleeve t-shirt, and Izaya was shaking, his pulse frantic across the skin.

Shizuo half-expected a bite when the tip of Izaya's nose brushed his jaw, but Izaya tongued the cut that he had just opened on Shizuo's cheek, licking away the blood, as if to remind Shizuo of what he had just done. A sharp electrical surge passed through Shizuo's spine, and his body reacted, his mind reacted. Shizuo was supposed to hurt him back, but what he felt now wasn't blinding rage - it was a feeling as unknown to him as the sea bottom; it left him so stunned that his hold on Izaya's wrists loosened.

"Pathetic," Izaya snickered. "I thought you were going to kill me, Shizu-chan."

And there Shizuo stood, flash-frozen in shock.

"Here," Izaya said, his voice low-pitched. There was an undertone of fondness in it that made everything more painful. Izaya took Shizuo's hand and lifted it to his own neck, shaping the palm to his throat. "You have to push here, hard enough to compress the airway or block the blood from flowing into my head. A few minutes and I'll be dead… Or, well, you can be merciful and just snap my neck."

Shizuo flinched, thumb sliding over the hollow of Izaya's throat. Izaya hummed in approval, tipping his head back just a little. "Yeah, like this," Izaya breathed. "Now, Shizu-chan, tell me you want to kill me."

Shizuo did want to say it, but, more than anything, he wanted to believe he would be able to do it. He couldn't, and he couldn't even establish where his obsession with killing Izaya had disappeared off to. It was gone, he couldn't find it anywhere, not in his anger, not in his hands of destruction, not even in his voice.

But it couldn't have disappeared, because things don't disappear, things change.

What if his obsession with killing Izaya had changed into something else, still pulling him toward him, still making him crave to see Izaya coming undone, but something different? He couldn't grasp it yet, he couldn't give it a name; it frustrated him. But what annoyed him off the most was that he was so violently turned on. For fuck's sake, he thought, what was happening to him?!

"You piss me off," Shizuo thundered, surging forward.

When he pressed their chests together, Shizuo didn't understand why this proximity felt so different. He had slept hugging Izaya for weeks, and he and Izaya touched a lot - not just casual bumps of shoulders and knees brushing. He was used to the tip of Izaya's nose across his neck, the touch of Izaya's hand, the weight of Izaya's body settling into his own. Sometimes, in the morning, Shizuo woke up to feel Izaya hard across his thigh, and though Shizuo felt his own body growing hot, he knew that morning wood was normal for a guy of their age. It didn't mean that Izaya was turned on by him or vice versa, the idea was laughable.

No, something about this situation felt even more intimate, somehow dangerous. Shizuo didn't understand why. He just felt it uncoiling in his belly, this unknown warmth, leaving him on edge, electric.

He towered over Izaya, the palm of his hand sliding from Izaya's neck to the back of his head, fingers combing through Izaya's hair, curling across the strands and then pulling, so that Izaya's head was tilted back and neck bared. Shizuo breathed across the curve of Izaya's neck, "You are such a liar."

Izaya laughed. "You're delusional if this still surprise you, hmm?" Then he whispered across Shizuo's earlobe: "Joking, you're just an idiot."

"Maybe I am," Shizuo growled. "Maybe you're an idiot too, flea." He ran his lips up the side of Izaya's neck, and anger made him want to suck bruises into the skin or bite him, or probably both. He wondered how Izaya would react if he did it. He pressed his teeth across Izaya's skin and Izaya drew a sharp intake of breath, just to exhale in a short burst when Shizuo kissed him there.

"Did you like it?" Shizuo whispered.

"This is so lame of you, Shizu-chan," Izaya said, chuckling a bit under his breath despite the fact that his voice was brittle and heartbeat frantic. Shizuo's jaw clenched when Izaya chirped, "You'll never be successful with women if you just keep asking for confirmation-"

Shizuo yanked on Izaya's hair. Izaya cried out in pain, blunt fingernails digging into the muscles of Shizuo's shoulders.

"Stop being a dick," Shizuo snarled. A hoarse whimper leapt from Izaya when Shizuo bit down on the skin. "I want it to feel good, but I don't know how to do it. So you gotta say it, or I'm gonna stop here and I won't do it ever again." He swallowed, and tried his best to keep his voice steady. "Say it- did you like it, Izaya?"

Not a single word escaped Izaya's lips. He was silent, breathing hard through his nose as though he was pissed. "You really want to know it, hmm?" Izaya said eventually, and he was so close that his breath fanned on Shizuo's lips. "I hated it."

Shizuo's arms relaxed at his sides. "Fine," he breathed. "Go sleeping Izaya… I need to take a walk."

When Shizuo distanced himself, Izaya seized his wrist.

Izaya was breathing in and out like he had been running away far and fast. "Wait," he said, speaking that single word as though it was agony. He was shuddering, like he felt conflicted and wanting and angry at the same time. "Wait," Izaya repeated, and he pulled Shizuo closer, back to him. He pressed his body against Shizuo's, burying his head into his neck as though he wanted to hide there. "Do it again," Izaya said, grabbing hold of Shizuo's hair, fingernails scraping the scalp. "Beast."

Shizuo didn't quite understand where this would lead Izaya and him. He had no idea how this would change the equation balancing their life and his own, as he couldn't comprehend what he was going to do now, but he felt from the depth of his heart that he didn't have to understand it now. "I liked it," Izaya breathed, and his legs were shaking.

It was all Shizuo needed to hear; everything else could go to hell.

The quiver in Izaya's breath that followed as Shizuo spread open-mouthed kisses from his collarbone up to his earlobe felt raw, far from anything that had ever escaped Izaya's lips before. In the dark, Shizuo barely saw him. He learned him with his mouth. He buried his face in the gap between Izaya's jaw and the collar of his shirt, and here he smelled and kissed and licked every inch of skin. "It felt good when you kissed me here," he heard himself saying, and he kissed Izaya on the jaw. "…And here." He sucked a spot under Izaya's ear. "….And here, and here," Shizuo said between the kisses, and Izaya's arms were all around him.

Shizuo slid his hand up under Izaya's shirt and Izaya jumped at the contact. Then, Izaya nodded. "Go on," he said. Shizuo pushed Izaya's shirt up to his chest and stood there, lingering for a moment, lips on Izaya's neck. His whole body felt hot, because Izaya had just started unbuttoning his shirt, running his hand over Shizuo's collarbone to push it to the side, undressing him. Izaya's touch was warm and firm and rough, but where it passed, it struck fire.

Shizuo wanted to do the same to him. Hesitant, he drew his fingers up Izaya's chest, making the skin shiver into goose bumps. He caressed the nipples with the palm of his hands, and Izaya's breaths became short, his pulse fluttering. When he lowered himself to kiss Izaya's chest, Shizuo felt Izaya's hands sliding into his hair, and the more he kissed and touched him the more Izaya unwound. This pleased him. Shizuo wanted to bend Izaya under his touch, to keep him close, and he wanted to do it gently, even if he had nothing but instinct to guide him and a raw strength he couldn't keep on a leash. Izaya had said: My bones are just like glass in your hands, Shizu-chan. That scared him. It made him feel unstable, his legs felt useless as a wet towel.

Izaya curled up, and they anchored against each other when Shizuo's mouth closed on a nipple, teeth grazing the skin. He was sure Izaya would yell at him to stop if he were to hurt him, but Izaya only writhed against him, swearing under his breath. "Fuck," Izaya said, and blood thrummed in Shizuo's body at the filthy way the word rolled off Izaya's tongue. He liked this Izaya, desperate and warm, so far from the ice-cold insect he had always despised. God, he wanted to do so many things to him now.

Shizuo's hand slid downward, running over Izaya's stomach. When his fingers moved on the skin under his navel and lingered there, drawing light arcs, Izaya gasped, his chest rising and falling, uneven and fast like he was having a hard time controlling his breathing.

Shizuo spoke slowly, "Tell me what you want."

Izaya's knees buckled. Shizuo held him on his feet. "Do whatever you want," Izaya hissed.

"That won't do," Shizuo said with a hoarse voice, and Izaya jerked at every word as though they were stabbing him. "Talk, Izaya, tell me what you want."

Izaya's hand closed on the nape of Shizuo's neck, pulling him up and against him. Izaya was so close that Shizuo smelled the coffee from his mouth. The following moment had left both of them hanging, both their breathing suspended in the space between them.

Izaya's voice was wrecked and brittle, shattered to fragments of breath and syllables, his body shaking. He whispered across Shizuo's lips: "Touch me."

Shizuo felt dizzy, heartbeat hammered in his chest, his mouth went dry. He pressed his hand over the whole length of Izaya's cock through his trousers, and Izaya cried out like the noise had been ripped from him, like it was torture. Izaya was so hard, so damn hard, his cock twitched when Shizuo moved the palm of his hand across it, slowly. Shizuo wanted to touch him gently at first, not because he wanted to tease him or to act like a sadist, and definitely not because he feared how Izaya's cock would feel in his hand... He just didn't know what Izaya would like, he had no idea of how to touch him just right to make him lose his mind.

He wondered about it, though, as he ran the palm of his hand across Izaya's cock - how did Izaya touch himself? And what did he think about? What turned Izaya on so much that it made him drop his collected façade, made him surrender to something so primal and animalistic?

...Had Izaya ever thought of him while he jerked off?

Heat exploded in the base of Shizuo's spine, and it was seeping deeper than he had ever felt when rage overtook him — he felt feral, self-control shot to pieces. Every inch of his body strained toward Izaya, his cock was throbbing so hard that he just pressed it against Izaya's, pinning him against the bookshelf. Shizuo rolled his hips, grinding against Izaya, hard and rough and desperate. A sharp electrical shock flashed through his body, and Shizuo flinched at it, not because he didn't want this, but because he had never imagined it would feel this good. Pleasure burned, razor-like sharp, and he groaned deep in his throat.

"Hold on to me," Shizuo said, because Izaya was a shivering mess now, his legs trembled as he pushed up on his tiptoes to meet Shizuo. When he lifted the smaller man, pulling him on his lap, Shizuo sensed the outline of a utility knife in Izaya's hip pocket – that little shit, Shizuo thought. Then Izaya bucked his hips, and Shizuo thought nothing.

"Don't stop," Izaya breathed.

Shizuo didn't. There was a rhythm Izaya enjoyed, Shizuo felt it in the way breath caught in his throat, in the sighs escaping his lips, in the way his body grew warmer. Izaya's hands were everywhere on his back, clutching at him like that time Shizuo had saved him from drowning, tighter and tighter, his face pressed into Shizuo's neck, kissing and biting him there. Izaya gripped at him with his blunt fingernails, and he sighed and swore, as though a part of him was trying to keep control with the same desperation of the other which was struggling to let everything go and just feel.

"Hey, look at me," Shizuo said, sliding his hand on the back of Izaya's head, gently pulling him up so he could see his face.

In the moonlight, Shizuo could make out Izaya's features. His hair was tousled and some strands fell on his eyes, shut so tight that thin vertical lines formed between his eyebrows. Izaya's head was turned sideways, hands clenched Shizuo's shoulders, thighs trembled. All in all, pleasure on Izaya's face looked like a synonym for tension.

"Look at me," Shizuo repeated, softly, and rubbed his face against Izaya's. He kissed the tip of his nose, a delicate cheekbone, he nuzzled an ear, tracing with his mouth the narrow line of an eyebrow, just to kiss him again on an eyelid. Izaya opened his eyes, holding his gaze to Shizuo's. They bumped their foreheads together, and neither of them gave an inch when Izaya slid against him, his skin smelling hot and sweet, nipples taut against Shizuo's chest.

The tip of their noses brushed and a shiver jolted up Shizuo's spine.

He wanted to do so many things to Izaya now-

No, just one.

He wanted to kiss him.

With his right hand he cupped Izaya's cheek, and slid his thumb over Izaya's lower lip. "Izaya," Shizuo said, as he had never said it before.

He didn't even have to think about leaning his lips on Izaya's. He just did it. He felt shock passing through Izaya in waves, his body growing tensed like a bow. Shizuo merged their lips again in another fragile, chaste kiss. This time he learned the shape of Izaya's lips, their softness, how breath flickered from them when they parted. "Izaya," Shizuo whispered. Izaya's name billowed inside of him, filling his body and mind, and he said it again, "Izaya."

Shizuo felt a familiar sensation now.

It wasn't quite pain, it was more like a sting right under his shoulder blade. Holding his breath, he slid his hand on Izaya's hip pocket. He found it empty.

Both Izaya's hands were tensed over Shizuo's shoulders, pointing the utility knife at Shizuo's back. Izaya was breathing hard across Shizuo's lips, and for a moment Shizuo thought he was going to see Izaya cry for the first time ever. But Izaya's cheeks were dry, as always. Though the lines between his eyebrows had deepened, and blood had started to appear on his lower lip in a dark bloom where Izaya was biting at it.

"I can't stand it anymore," Izaya breathed, his voice brittle, and each word felt like an ice chip, so painfully sharp. Izaya's arms slipped from Shizuo's shoulders, the knife fell on the floor. His eyes opened. There was a shell-shocked gleam in them. Izaya's his bare chest heaved, his fist landed on Shizuo's chest, hard. He blurted, "Nothing was supposed to change!"

Shizuo thought of the night he had thrown Izaya against the wall, and if it hadn't been for Shinra he would have crushed him under a hardwood wardrobe. That night, he had promised Izaya that he would kill him. It was true, nothing was supposed to change between them. What he felt toward Izaya did change, though. He stepped back.

"But it did, isn't?" Shizuo said, his voice deep and honest. "Everything had changed, Izaya."

Izaya's expression hardened. He turned his head sideways, and flipped on the switch. When artificial light flooded into the room, Shizuo shook his head, unable to believe at his own eyes. Bruises marred Izaya's pale skin everywhere, blood smudged on his lips. Shizuo wanted to be careful, to make Izaya feel good, he didn't want this, he didn't mean to hurt him. Self-hatred burned, it made Shizuo's eyes prickle.

Izaya picked up his shirt and the knife, and headed toward the entry door, turning his back to Shizuo.

It fell off Shizuo's lips. "I'm sorry."

Izaya's shoulders heaved, but he didn't look back. He shut the door at his back and disappeared into the night.


Izaya didn't come back that night, nor the following day, or the next, until a whole week had passed by - the longest period that Shizuo had been without him since they met. Shizuo searched for him by day, waited for him every night, sometimes with Alfred on his lap, other times alone, chain smoking sitting on the windowsill until dawn broke.

This morning he was alone, a cigarette hanging from his lips, rubbing his arms because the air had become even chillier. Dammit, dammit, damn that fucking Izaya! he thought, pushing his hair to a mess. If he got in some trouble I'll kill him for real. Such a pain in the ass he is... Aaaah, damn. It pisses me off not knowing that he's fine.

It makes me mad missing him so much.

Izaya's scent still lingered in the air, it was everywhere in the house, hanging there like the yearning in Shizuo's chest. There was nothing Shizuo could do about it, he had always been powerless against the sheer force of his emotions. If he was the rowing boat, they were the rough sea, and now the waves were shaking him.

It didn't surprise him, though. Izaya had always been his storm.

That flea had always been the most catastrophic sequence of freak waves, yes, but it had never been like this before. Hate and rage were dull compared to the unmitigated desire Shizuo felt toward him now, not Izaya the insect or the villain or his nemesis, but Izaya with all his quirky idiosyncrasies that Shizuo had sealed into his memory, Izaya as a man, Izaya as a person, Izaya.

Nothing was supposed to change was the last thing Izaya said to him.

One hundred and one things had changed since they arrived here. No, probably just one. It was a change of skin that had required time, it was invisible to Shizuo's eyes like smoke blended in the air, yet it had always been there. Hate had transformed, and the metamorphosis was now complete, showing itself in its sheer magnitude.

I don't hate him anymore...

I love him.

"Fuck," he whispered, and the cigarette slipped from his mouth.


A/N: Thanks to my beta, Aira Kay!