"Cut him. I'll love him even more than you do."

Izaya dropped the sword on the floor, his body trembling all over, lips quivering.

Shizuo pressed the palm of his hand on the small of Izaya's back. "Oi, Flea. You okay?"

Izaya nodded, forcing himself to smile.

"That sword is not a toy," the masked man said softly. "It's not a common sword either. Its influence drives people insane."

Izaya sharpened his eyes and tilted his head to one side, "If it is so dangerous, how could it be that you carry it in your bag?"

"I need it. It's the only demonic tool that can cut supernatural bonds."

"I'm starting to lose it," Shizuo growled, a vein popping on his forehead. "Come on, remove that fucking mask already. It creeps me out and it pisses me off when things give me the creeps."

"Nope. I won't."

Shizuo snorted. "I swear I'll count down to zero starting from five. If you haven't pulled that fucking mask away before I say zero, I'll snap your neck so the mask will come off anyway. Fiiiive-"

"I can't remove it! Do you have any idea of what's out there?!"

"Foooour-"

"We live close to those lands! I bet you saw the rope with talismans in the woods up there!"

"I-don't-give-a-fuck-three—"

"It protects the village, but not completely! This masks protects me from the remaining supernatural energies coming from the wild lands!"

"Bullshit. I saw with my own eyes that there's nothing there. And with this is two."

The man laughed hysterically. "You have no idea what's in those places! I saw what kind of beings live there. Monsters roam there! You were lucky enough to survive once. If I were you, I wouldn't push my luck any further denying the peril."

"I'm not afraid of some legend. You should be afraid instead. Of me. One."

The masked man was still shaking in mocking laugher. "What if I told you that I saw with my own eyes what you call legends? I'm a doctor, a man of science who happened to discover a phenomenon that breaks the physical laws! I saw a Dullahan, a headless woman!"

Shizuo bared his teeth, but before he had time to say zero, he cast a sidelong glance at Izaya and what he saw made him freeze there, the smirk vanished from his face, as though he was unable to do anything else than watch Izaya with that gaze of his that studied every shift in Izaya's expression with surgical precision.

Izaya felt naked. He struggled to shut Shizuo out, as desperately as trying to close a door in a nightmare to escape from pursuers, but no matter how hard he struggled to turn the key into the lock, there was no time to lock it, not in time to keep Shizuo's gaze out.

"Oi, Izaya. What the hell is wrong with you?" Shizuo breathed, his gaze unmoved. "Do you believe that he saw a headless woman for real?"

"Don't worry, Shizuo," Izaya said with a hardened voice, pushing hard on that door that kept Shizuo out. "My deceased father was very fond of the legend of the Dullahan. His desk was even sculpted with mythological beings, and she was among them. Can you believe that? What a coincidence, and what kind of freak would have a desk like that, anyways?"

"Izaya, answer me! Do you really believe that this guy saw a headless woman in that place?"

"Enough," someone said. And though they voiced Izaya's thoughts, he hadn't been the one speaking.

In the rush to discover who had wandered in their house, he and Shizuo had left the door open. On the threshold, Tanaka Tom held onto a dark red lucky charm so desperately that his knuckle had turned white.

"Kishitani-san," Tom said in a thin voice, a crooked smile on his face. "Welcome back."

The masked man broke in a boisterous laugh. "Hah! You heard him! Kishitani Shingen is my name for real! Hello, Tanaka-kun."

Shizuo's cheeks were a deep pink when he breathed, "Tom-san?!"

"You left just like that," Tom said, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. "You… Okay?"

Izaya ruffled Shizuo's hair and chirped, "No need to worry, Tanaka-san. He's a tough guy. Kishitani-sensei, we're sorry. We'll leave your house as soon as possible. Shinra let us stay here while you were away, and we're very grateful to you, aren't we, Shizu-chan?"

Kishitani Shingen shook his head. "You can stay. I'll sleep at Shinra's for few days, and then we're gonna leave."

The masked man wrapped the sword called Saika into the woolen cloth, put it back into his bag, and headed for the door.

Before he took his leave, Kishitani Shingen said, "I would like to stay, but there's something we have to do."

Izaya barely held back a shiver.

That's the way, Izaya thought.

They'll cut the bond between the head and the body – the Dullahan won't be able to kill anymore.

He wouldn't have believed Kishitani Shingen. A demonic sword would have sounded like something out of a movie, if he hadn't felt on his own skin that Saika wasn't a normal object. He could still hear echoes of that voice resounding in his mind.

That's the way Shinra found to make her human.

What about me? What will remain of me once that the doors of Valhalla are permanently closed?

Izaya bit his lower lip to suppress the laugher he felt billowing inside of him.

It's time.


The hallway was enveloped in thick, dark smoke that barely hid the multitude of doors opening on each side. Flames licked out from the thresholds and engulfed the golden numbers and letters written on the checkered floor. The darkness was so thick that Izaya couldn't see where he was going, as though he had lost direction inside an underground tunnel. A woman stepped out from a door few feet to his right and slowly walked toward him. Her skin was ghastly pale and her hipbones and collarbones were sharply evident under the fabric of her floral wrap dress.

"Mother," he heard himself calling. An ancient pain flashed through his chest and, in his dream, he was crying the tears he never cried in real life.

Between his sobs, he heard a faint sound at his back.

He whipped around, but there was nobody behind him, just the copycat of the same hallway stretching in front of him.

When he turned, the headless woman had replaced his mother. She was enveloped in the same smoke that now swirled everywhere and showed only her pale neck and the mouth of the head she carried under her arm.

"Call my name," Izaya pleaded. "Not his. Mine."

The mouth smirked.

"Shizuo," she said.

Izaya woke panting for breath.

Shizuo was holding Izaya tight to his chest, and calmly told him, "It's okay; it was just a dream." Izaya could smell his bed-warm skin, feel the weight of their limbs tangled together. A faint light coming from the window bathed Shizuo's shoulders in pre-dawn indigo.

When Izaya lifted his head and their eyes met, he saw that Shizuo had dark bags under his eyes. Shizuo didn't say anything else, just raised his mouth to Izaya. They shared a kiss that started chaste, a suggestion of the many kisses they shared the night before, but soon became unrestrained and exploring while they held each other in the tightest possible embrace. When Shizuo pushed Izaya's back to the sheets, rolled the tip of his tongue over Izaya's upper lip and moved his hand down Izaya's hip, fumbling to remove Izaya's pajama pants, the air rushed from Izaya's chest and a feeling grew in his upper stomach like a seed budding in a time lapse video. He knew there was a name for it, and felt so scared, like he was dangling from the edge of a cliff, too terrified to lay bare to something that affected him so much. This was crazy. He mustn't have sex with Shizuo.

Hesitant, Shizuo reached out to touch his upper leg. Izaya flinched. Izaya tensed as Shizuo's thumb reached the spot where his scars started, slid his thumb over the feathery ridges, lingering on the tender skin there. Shizuo's hand trembled a little and, somehow, that rattled Izaya more than anything else, making reality crash down hard with the sudden cool breeze that brushed across his naked skin from the open window.

Izaya draped an arm over his face. "Enough," he said, and though he wanted to sound detached, his voice had that squeaky, high-pitched ring similar to the one Alfred's toys made when the cat bit them hard in the right spot.

They disengaged, shaking. The moment the line of their gaze connected, Izaya felt nothing. Then, there was the sudden tightening of his chest into a knot, rage building inside, because the version of himself reflected in Shizuo's eyes was such an unpleasant sight.

Shizuo ruffled the hair on the back of his own head. "Too much?"

Izaya shook his head. "Touch me everywhere but there."

He got up before Shizuo had the time to ask for explanation. In the bathroom, his own reflection in the mirror was someone Izaya would have avoided gladly – the man had sharp cheekbones, bags under his eyes, ruffled hair, bruised lips, hickeys everywhere, and overall felt exhausted, definitely pissed off, and so fucking horny.

When Izaya returned into the room to get a change of clothes, from downstairs came the familiar sound of porcelain clinking as Shizuo prepared breakfast. In the daylight, their room looked like a mess – Shizuo's dirty laundry lay scattered on the floor along with crosswords magazines and bitten pencils. Shizuo's cats mug was on the beast's bedside table along with so many packages of sleeping pills that it looked like Shizuo had already planned his suicide. In an open drawer there were other two packs of sleeping pills along with a dark red lucky charm.

Tom's.

Izaya stretched his arms, massaged his knee from the ache that kept stinging and burning, and pulled from the inner pocket of his burgundy tux a slightly crumpled Marlboro Red. Shiki's. Izaya rolled it between his fingers, and hid it in his own drawer.

A moment later, Shizuo came into the room carrying two mugs. "Breakfast," he said, handling Izaya his milk and cereal. Shizuo sat on the windowsill and responded to Izaya's disgusted expression by eyeing the space in front of him. "Eat, for fuck's sake."

Not in the mood to quarrel, Izaya joined him. Shizuo didn't blink when Izaya cringed at the taste – the beast had added a ton of sugar on purpose. Still with his nose wrinkled, Izaya tried to pick the cereal floating in the milk out with his spoon.

Shizuo took a disgruntled gulp. "Wanna talk about your nightmare?"

Izaya stared into the cup's saccharine depths. "Tell me, Shizu-chan, do you ever dream of the place where you lived as a kid?"

"I don't. But, sometimes in my nightmares, before Kasuka appears, I dream of mist. Thick like fog. It was always like that in winter. It lasted long enough to make you forget what lay around you. It went away in spring, and you said of course there was that building down there, I totally forgot. It was that bad. You couldn't see a few feet from your nose."

"Would you like to go back?"

"What for? There's nothing left for me there. Probably only the mist remained the same."

Shizuo shifted on the windowsill, and casually leaned the underside of his bare foot on top of Izaya's. With his toes, he absentmindedly started drawing light arcs on Izaya's ankle, making him shiver all over. "Dreams, at times, are like ghosts, aren't they? Stuff you chase in sleep that is gone once you wake. Unresolved business, that's it." He drank a mouthful of milk, and then looked into Izaya's eyes. "To me, it looks like you've got a hell of a lot of an unresolved stuff going on."

Izaya let out a dry laugh. "What do you suggest, hmm?"

One blond brow twitched. "Maybe your mind's trying to get you to face something or is trying to tell you something. There must be something you gotta do, or fix, or sort out, or whatever. Are you behaving, Izaya?"

Izaya faked his outrage. "Shame on you! I've been such a good boy lately."

Shizuo glared at him from under his dark eyelashes. "I bet you did wonder about the reason why you keep dreaming of your mom. You're like that, always analyzing everything." He leaned the empty mug on the floor. "Did you figure out what it meant?"

Protozoan brain, Izaya thought. I don't have to be Freud to figure it out. Of course he did, and he even came to the most logic solution: ignoring it and let it pass, like when a hornet lean on your bare arm, and you freeze on the spot because you know you mustn't move nor scream nor breathe nor do anything at all but just wait for it to fly away, hopefully without using the stinger beforehand. This bother in particular just consisted of walking in a hallway from the manor where he lived as a kid and finding his deceased mother disguised as a mythological creature named Dullahan that called Shizuo's name instead of his.

The dream was a mosaic made of mismatched pieces that all fitted together because, regardless of the context, they were all things he wanted to achieve, wanted to possess, wanted to forget. Some pieces were brand new and promising, like the future that would wait for him if only that Dullahan would call for him and ferry him to Valhalla. Others were more mysterious, with shredded edges and a faint and opaque color that made feelings unseen like the sea bottom resurface. The smell of brand new toys came to his mind, the ring of a voice at the telephone saying his name, the feeling of a cold, silky cheek under the palm of his baby hands. His father's tears sliding down from wide, possessed eyes—

He refused to linger on those memories. It was useless delving into murky black waters to fish and examine them, because he didn't know how to swim back to the surface afterwards. The easiest, safest way was let them roll right off his back. He refused to chase the ghosts of his memories haunting his sleep.

His train of thought derailed when he realized that Shizuo was waiting for a reply. "There's no way to fix stuff with my mother now."

In the morning sun, Shizuo's eyes looked golden like tiger eyes.

"So you need to fix it with yourself." Shizuo's hand found his. "Face it. Fight it, if you need to. Then, move on."

"You can't fight everything, Shizu-chan," Izaya muttered, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice. "For example, you can't fight dozens of armed men using your fists only. What would have you done if I didn't come to your rescue? What if I didn't decide to come back?"

It was such a lame way to steer the conversation toward innocuous topics, though he was starting to get the tip of his toes into those metaphorical murky waters, and just the idea of proceeding any further sent an unpleasant feeling to the pit of his stomach. Luckily, if he noticed it, Shizuo didn't seem to care, because a ghost of a smile had appeared on his lips.

Shizuo rubbed his thumb across the back of Izaya's hand and asked, "What made you decide to come back?"

Izaya shrugged. "There's some extent of craziness in human nature, ne? Men come back to places for desires they cannot resist. Or just out of curiosity."

Shizuo was looking at him straight in the eye, as though he would be able to read through Izaya if he stared long enough. "What is what you want, Izaya?"

It's you, idiot. I want to possess your body and mind, I want to have you inside me and swallow you to become who you are. Either way, I want forget about you forever. Your existence bothers me like an upcoming hailstorm over the harvest of my self-control, making me feel things, powerful and unrestrained, turning myself upside down and inside out like a dirty sock, while I only wanted to watch other people's life without worrying about mine. Hey, Shizu-chan! Let's crash together like stars colliding and kill each other in that explosion to send gravitational waves into the universal space-time fabric, shaking it like we're not human beings anymore but Gods! Can you imagine what an explosion it would be?!

Hey, Shizuo, I was wondering… Were you serious when you said that you love me?

Izaya smirked. "Black coffee, that's what I want. Would you make me some coffee, Shizu-chan? Pretty please?"

Shizuo spat out, "Finish your milk first. And no coffee for you if you don't tell me where the fuck you've been for the past eight days."

"Whoa, so scary," Izaya whispered as he leaned his head against the window frame and watched Shizuo through half-lidded eyes.

Shizuo's voice was sincere and deep. "I searched for you everywhere, you fucked up my sleep, I made everyone else worry because I looked like shit because of you. Fuck, Izaya, what if you were dead?"

"I would have become a ghost to haunt you forever."

Maybe it was because he had squeezed Shizuo's hand, or maybe because he had said it while looking Shizuo straight in the eye, maybe because there was no trace of mockery in his voice at all, maybe because there was a bit of truth in that, but what he'd meant as a joke sounded too much like a love confession instead. A twisted one, but still… And now, Shizuo was looking at him without batting an eyelid, his throat bobbed, and he was surging forward to kiss Izaya on the mouth as though sealing the promise, and murmured across Izaya's lips with that deep, velvet voice of his, "Stop saying creepy ass things, flea."

Izaya nibbled on Shizuo's upper lip and breathed, "You know, if you call me magnificent flea from now on, I'll tell you where I've been."

"You fucking flea..."

"Wrong epithet! No way! I won't tell you!"

Shizuo growled and started tickling Izaya until, through the fits of laugher, he admitted defeat. Izaya exhaled an exhausted sigh and said, "Fine. I went to my parents' house."

"Because of your nightmares." It wasn't a question at all. "Did you visit their graves?"

"Do you peg me as that kind of person?"

"Hell no. Though if both of them are gone, what did you do there all alone?"

"Being alone was my plan, actually. Too bad it didn't work."

"Who did you find there?"

"A rabid dog and an old acquaintance."

Shizuo grinned. "Let me guess. This old acquaintance of yours thought that you were six feet under already."

"He did, and I gave him a good treat! He was delighted to see me in the flesh."

"Guessed that. Was he a childhood friend?"

Izaya shook his head. "He worked with me back at the Academy."

"That man always dressed in white? Was Shiki his name?"

Izaya hummed his reply.

Shizuo scratched the back of his head. "You two looked close back there."

"We were close, in a way."

"What way?"

"I like him. As a human being of course."

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "I figured that as a human being part. Though you didn't reply to my question."

"He knew my father. And we fucked."

He saw Shizuo's eyes widening for a moment, his expression changing.

"It grossed you out," Izaya said.

"No. I've just never guessed that-" Shizuo averted his gaze, leaving the sentence hanging in midair. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.

"Did you think that before yesterday night I've always been straight?"

Shizuo shrugged his shoulders. "Let's say that your being an ass has always stopped me from wondering who you may or not sleep with." His hazel eyes were on Izaya, dark and sincere. He asked, "Is he your lover?"

"Are you asking me if I spent a whole week in bed?"

"I didn't ask you that." Shizuo's voice was raspy and low. "But did you-?"

Izaya shook his head.

"C'mere," Shizuo said in a deep growl, pulling Izaya into his lap and sliding the palm of his hand on the nape of Izaya's neck. He scooped up Izaya's mouth with his own to give him a chaste kiss that make Izaya sink into Shizuo's arms with a shaky exhale.

They just stood there for a few minutes, Shizuo hugging Izaya and neither of them speaking, Shizuo's skin warm and soft against Izaya's. Then, Shizuo muttered, "Did that man tell you something about-" His voice broke. "Fuck, can't ask it."

Izaya knew that there was no point in hiding it or pretending that he hadn't understood the question. Though despite Izaya swore he didn't care about Shizuo's feelings, he felt a lump in his throat, like dead leaves were lodged there. He had to struggle with himself to utter the words, "You brother didn't come back. Nobody did beside us."

Izaya expected Shizuo to lose it and start crying like he did after every nightmare. Shizuo was silent instead.

When Shizuo's hand searched for Izaya's and their fingers slid together, interlacing and fitting against each other, Izaya had to repeat to himself, I don't care for him.

Izaya continued, "Shiki asked me if you're willing to rejoin the army. They need someone like you. No matter if you didn't come back to the Academy after the attack, even though you survived. They all want revenge like you do, and while I was away I worked hard to devise a new plan to make those bastards pay very soon."

Shizuo didn't utter a word while Izaya explained to him the plan he and Shiki had prepared, just listened. There was just the painful pressure from Shizuo's fingers as he squeezed Izaya's hand. At times, their hands were clamped so tightly together that Izaya could feel Shizuo's bones.

Eventually, Izaya said, "You should think about it."

Shizuo lifted his head to stare into Izaya's eyes. "I'll do it," Shizuo said with quiet intensity, unwavering the eye contact. "I'll rejoin the army for this mission only. Then, I want to come back."

"You must get ready to leave your job in few days so you can leave in time." Izaya explained that, to reach the Academy from their village, Shizuo had to take the train to reach the closest city to the Academy. Shiki would come to meet him there.

Shizuo kissed Izaya's chin. "Will you come with me?"

"I won't."

Shizuo buried his head in Izaya's shoulder, draping his arms all around him. He breathed, "You gotta wait for me."

It took a while for Izaya to hug Shizuo back, and when his arms closed across Shizuo's back, only then, Shizuo shivered as though he was silently crying.

Shizuo kissed Izaya's chest. Izaya's throat bobbed.

I won't wait for you, Shizuo.

I can't.

The sharp sunlight coming in from the window bathed Shizuo's profile as he waited for Izaya to dial Shiki's number, striking glints in his hair and eyes, making him look like he could eat the world raw. Even if it didn't look like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, even if his little brother was already gone, Shizuo kept trying to make up for his mistake, doing what he thought it was the right thing to do, because that was who Shizuo was. He wouldn't sit back waiting for his nightmares to pass; he was the kind of person that chose to fight his ghosts.

The phone rang several times before Shiki picked up.

"Shiki-san, it's me."

Shiki paused for a moment. "Where are you?"

"It doesn't matter. I have good news."

"Where the hell are you two now?! I'm coming to get both of you immediately."

Izaya chuckled. "Nope, I'm not coming."

As a background noise, Izaya heard the sound of Shiki's leather shoes tapping repeatedly, as though the man was almost running. "You're coming, Izaya. I don't give a fuck if you won't rejoin us. You can do whatever you want with your life. But you must come here."

Another sound. A woman's thin voice saying, "Sir, you must wait outside!"

Shiki thundered, "You're coming. And this is the reason why-"

Those were the last words Shiki spoke. Then, Izaya heard only the feminine voice in background repeating that Shiki wasn't allowed to stay where he was, along with the sound of someone breathing. Not speaking. Just breathing.

Izaya raised an eyebrow. "Shiki-san?"

Nobody replied.

"Shiki-saaaan? Did the cat get your tongue? Can you hear me, Shiki-saaaan?"

"Is that you?" said a voice that was so much like Izaya's own, just older, more tired but that still carried the hint of a singsong chirp; a voice Izaya hadn't heard in more than a decade but that he had never been able to forget. He felt himself freezing on the spot, like a giant hornet had just lay on his arm.

"How are you, kid? I've been out for quite a long time, isn't it? I bet I missed a lot of stuff and you're all grown up now." Then, the man on the phone chuckled softly. "Hey there, Izaya."

Izaya didn't reply.

He stood there, powerless against the roll in his stomach, the sudden joy and the sting of pain, wondering if the sound of his name was supposed to sound different because it was the person who gave it to him saying it, thinking that he didn't know what he was supposed to say and feel and do now.

Izaya had always detached himself from his memories, he had always watched the blue waters of his past from far away.

He had always run away from his ghosts.

But now, his ghosts had caught him.

And then, like it was nothing more than a sand castle against the tide, his father's voice broke.

"I'm sorry."


A/N: Thanks to my beta Aira Kay and to my dear Su – she's an endless source of inspiration!