Author's Note: Well, it's still an hour before New Year here, but I hope you all have a great New Year and that 2012 brings you lots of luck! Consider this my little present to all of you~.
Izaya was good at what he did, information broking, that sort of thing. He was good at being able to find out everything about someone from just their name; their favourite foods, where they lived, their family life and work schedule, the clubs they'd been in at school, the colour of their first bike and all sorts of other things. It was his job, and he was good at his job. It was what he lived for, what he loved. His humans, their lives.
His legs were still curled up underneath him in the cool confines of his office chair. His hair had mostly dried by now, but Izaya still hadn't really bothered to dress. One hand had reached out to claim the mouse connected to the computer, his eyes, framed once again by those thick rimmed glasses, glued to screen in front of him.
He had returned to Shizuo's past again, delving into his life once more. It had been years since he had last done so, and there was some new urge to revisit it, some new feel about it. He guessed when people started to question their true feelings for someone; finding out all about them was a must. He had of course looked into Shizuo's past before. What sort of person would he be if he hadn't? The man was a monster, and even monsters had stories of their own. He had done so as soon as he had first encountered the brute, all those years ago when the two of them were still in school, on that fateful day in which Shinra had introduced them. Izaya had often wondered what would have happened if that little meeting had never taken place. It wouldn't have changed who he came to be, but would it have changed Shizuo? He guessed the blonde would have a lot less stress in his life if Izaya wasn't in it, but that didn't mean that the raven had ever considered leaving it. No. No. Shizuo was his plaything, and now Shizuo was his—
Most of what he found, he had already known, had remembered from before. It had all been easy enough to find too, online articles and records from his old schools and doctors. There had been no need for Izaya to call any of his contacts to do some digging, no, not when Shizuo's life was so honest and open. Ha, ha, it was so different to his. Light and dark, hot and cold.
He knew about Kasuka, obviously, and that he had been related to Shizuo, who he really was behind the stage name lumped upon him due to his acting career. Izaya had stumbled across that again tonight, digging up some photo of the younger Heiwajima when he had been signed by his agent. He couldn't fail to spot Shizuo in the background, lingering awkwardly with a figure that could only be his father. He couldn't fail to spot the look on Shizuo's face at the notion of his brother going away. It was funny that now, such a heartbroken look seemed to make Izaya feel— something for the blonde. He already knew that Shizuo had gone through a series of pathetic jobs after leaving school before Tom had hired him, because he had caused the man to be fired from most of them.
But then there were things that even he had never really known, because he'd never really looked that deep. Maybe he'd never cared enough to know before, but now it seemed like these things were just what he was looking for, they were just what he needed to— to do what? He could only see a handful of options here, and all of them were just out of the question, they were—
He hadn't known that Shizuo had been in and out of hospital as a kid. It wasn't hard to dig out the old medical records once he had found that out. Broken bones and fractured ones too, time and time again, just a normal kid struggling to keep up with an abnormal gift. He found a little clipping from some elementary school paper about Shizuo, something to do with winning some kind of little class art contest when he had been seven or eight or so. There was a photo attached of Shizuo at that age; His hair was still brown, its natural colouring, and he was grinning in a way that Izaya had never seen him smile before. The picture in question was held up beside him, and Izaya couldn't help but find the mess of colour and paint and lines hopelessly endearing.
He'd never bothered with all the niceties of Shizuo before, and now that he had— Ha. Ha. What an idiot he was, thinking things like that. An idiot, such an idiot to allow himself to fall in love. No. No. He hadn't known what had possessed him to go digging into all the little good points of the monster's past, he couldn't even hope to explain it, but he guessed the same thing that had motivated that was what pushed him out of his chair and made him dress and leave the apartment with the computer still on and head for an address he already knew.
Ikebukuro, Room 303, third floor.
"Welcome home, Shizu-chan,"
It was madness that he was here, really it was. It was madness that Izaya Orihara had come here, to the home of Shizuo Heiwajima. It was madness, it was crazy, but then most of Izaya's life lately had been just the same, just as uncontrolled and terrifying, so what difference would this make?
Izaya had expected the anger from the blonde to break out. This wasn't Shiki's place anymore, so there really was nothing to hold him back. His lips quirked up when the brute's hands closed around the potted plant in the corner, just by the door, to toss across the room towards his head. How long had it been since he had seen this side of Shizuo? The familiarity was soothing; it was reassuring to find that not everything had changed, even if it was going to soon. It was easy to side-step of course, Shizuo's rage acted against him, the tight space of the apartment, the fact that he really had liked that damn plant.
"There's the Shizu-chan I know," he chuckled out, and Shizuo remained across the room, positively seething. Izaya guessed the only thing holding him back was that it was his apartment, and somewhere, deep inside all of that anger, he knew that, knew that if he trashed the place then it would only end up worse for him than it would for Izaya. The informant knew how he worked, he could see all of the cogs working behind Shizuo's twitching temples, in that thick skull of his.
He had been in the apartment when Shizuo had returned, leaning against the back of Shizuo's sofa, staring hard at the door. It had been easy enough to get in, the lock on the door really was appalling, and Izaya half wondered if he should call the landlord on Shizuo's behalf to get it fixed. It hadn't taken him long to work his way in, it had taken him even less time to snoop around the place properly. The last time he had been here, he'd been otherwise engaged and hadn't had the chance. Shizuo didn't really keep a lot of stuff, he had soon found out, just books or plants or enough clothes to cover an army, a fridge full of milk and bread that was out of date, cupboards full of sweets and packets of green tea. He spotted the remains of a computer by the bin in the kitchen, obviously still waiting to be taking out. The poor thing had been destroyed, smashed to pieces, and Izaya had laughed, bitterly, realising that had explained just what Shizuo had thought of the truth behind Nakura. The notion was so delightful angry, it was such a suitable reaction for the brute. Yeah, yeah, Izaya had laughed.
"What the fuck are you—"
"Doing here?" Izaya finished, cutting across Shizuo with the rest of his question. He laughed again, that same laugh that Shizuo hated; that same laugh that was now tinged with bitterness and all sorts of emotion that Izaya didn't like nor want to acknowledge. He shrugged now, raising one shoulder lazily before letting it drop. Shizuo had taken a warning step closer, and Izaya could see the anger boiling on his face, the way his fists were shaking. But he'd not done anything more to Izaya yet. It was obvious that he had been just as affected by this, whatever it was, as Izaya had. Obvious that he had— it was fascinating, positively captivating! Marvellous! Wonderful! My, my what a game this had turned out to be, what a fucking fabulous game.
"Have you suddenly lost the ability to talk nicely, Shinozuka?" He responded after a pause, still laughing, delighted, bitter.
Shizuo growled at that, a low rumble that sent tingles down Izaya, straight to his crotch, though he knew it shouldn't, and something else was quickly tossed towards him. Another dodge saw the object crashing into the floor, and on glancing after it quickly, he saw that it was the telephone, socket and plug ripped clean from the wall. He couldn't help but chuckle, he really couldn't. Shizuo always had been fascinating, he always had been different, extraordinary compared to his humans. Like a plaything, like some high-tech puppet, yeah, yeah, he was positively mesmerizing. He was like some two-sided coin. He really was. He had the ability to be like this, the beast of Ikebukuro, and yet hadn't Izaya seen for himself just who he really was?
The look on Shizuo's face promised death, and yeah, yeah, Izaya had changed, but he hadn't changed so much that he was going to risk harm to himself just to end this game, to put a stop to it once and for all. What a marvellous game this had truly turned out to be, ha, ha. Izaya had never seen it take this turn when he had started it, had never expected this to be the end result. He had never expected him giving up to be the way it ended. The blonde growled out his question again, lower than before, laced with danger that Izaya was quick to notice.
"I'm an information broker, Shizu-chan, I am the embodiment of the information I choose to accept," Izaya breathed out with a sigh. Shizuo's forehead had crinkled in a frown, his lips turned down, scowling. Izaya could still see his fists shaking, could still see him trying to fight that anger, that curse of his, if only to save his apartment and not actually for his sake.
Why was he here? That was the killer question, wasn't it? Izaya himself didn't really know. Love is a monster, it really fucking is, and it makes people do stupid things, just because. It was only a matter of time before one of them had fallen, and Izaya supposed that he had been the first, he supposed that was why he was here. Because he hadn't seen many ways out of the mess he had landed in, he hadn't seen many ways to stop his game and make his feelings go away. The only way to make a temptation go away is to yield to it, hadn't that been his philosophy all these years? Yeah. Yeah.
"When I first found out that you were Shinozuka, when you were the guy on the end of my string, I didn't want to admit that it was true. When I felt that I was falling in— I felt disgusted, and even more so when I found out that he was actually you," Izaya broke off with a laugh, dark and on the edge, borderline on something dangerous, some pang of emotion. Shizuo's jaw seemed to have tightened, and his back had turned ridged, stiff, like he had just become frozen in place, captured by the words that Izaya could feel tumbling from his lips with little control, reckless abandon.
"But maybe I realised that running away wasn't going to work anymore. And when I admitted that, everything seemed to be... Courage is doing what you're scared to do or so Shiki always fucking says. The proof of that is that I'm here and not hauling my ass out of the city." He laughed again, bitter and genuine, the sound echoing around the two of them in the apartment, air thick with tension, as tangible as fog and smoke, choking them, cloaking them, hiding everything.
"You've always fascinated me Shizuo, always. I often wondered what it would be like it we had been friends or why you chose to hate me. You don't scare me, that's another reason why I'm still here," Another lazy shrug, a hitch of Shizuo's breath, the click of his knuckles as his fists uncurled. Izaya had reached into the pocket of his jacket, to reach at his flick knife, feeling a certain amount of calm swallow him up as he thumbed the cold metal with the pad of his skin. He smirked then, like always, always, always, but didn't really feel it, though his lips quirked up at the sides. It was madness that he was here, really it was. It was madness that Izaya Orihara had come here, to the home of Shizuo Heiwajima. It was madness, it was crazy, but then most of Izaya's life lately had been just the same, just as uncontrolled and terrifying, so what difference would this make?
Madness, madness, madness.
He pushed himself away from the back of the sofa, taking a step closer to Shizuo in the process. He could hear the jitters and the hitch in the other man's breathing, though what was the cause of that Izaya didn't know, he didn't. Shizuo was tall, but Izaya hadn't really realised just how tall until he stood here, in the quiet room, on the edge of toppling off of the world as he knew it, into some abyss that he wasn't ready for, but leaping into head first all the same. He could only hope he'd land on his feet, make it out the other side.
"I feel something for you, Shizuo. Can you believe that?" Another laugh, low and dark. He was nearing the door now, the one that Shizuo had shut but left unlocked. The blonde didn't move when Izaya passed him, he remained frozen, stuck in place; his head locked looking out of the window. Izaya could see the shake in his hands, which had unfurled from tight fists.
"I don't quite know what yet, I haven't quite collected all of the information on it, but it's some strong emotion. I know what it's like to hate you, I love to hate you, but I don't think that's how I feel about you anymore." Izaya laughed, again, as he hovered by the door. It seemed so fucking funny that all he could was laugh at something that really wasn't humorous anymore, in any way. He was mad, really, he was. It was madness that he was here, really it was. It was madness that Izaya Orihara had come here, to the home of Shizuo Heiwajima. It was madness, it was crazy, but then most of Izaya's life lately had been just the same, just as uncontrolled and terrifying, so what difference would this make?
"So where does that leave us, Shizuo Heiwajima?"
Madness, madness, mad—