Author's Note: Two exams are now out of the way, dad made the most amazing tuna bake for tea and I now get to spend the night catching up with Homestuck, woOoOo. I am in the best mood ever, so I hope you all enjoy this. I'm a sucker for stuff like this. Just wait until the next chapter though, it's so fluffy and wonderful and aw I love it. (Blowing my own trumpet like a BOSS)
Please don't forget to let me know what you thought in a review or s/t~.
When Izaya had heard that knock at his door and sent Namie to fetch whoever it was for him, he'd not been expecting to find Shizuo stood there, peering in with an expression that made Izaya want to laugh. No, he'd not been expecting the blonde to be there at all. A client, most likely, someone after some information in exchange for easy money; or maybe someone coming to deliver sushi for him, that was less likely seeing as Namie would never go out of her way to do something nice like that for him, but well, there was no need to dismiss it completely. He had been kind enough to let her come back to work after all; she should be thanking him, really, because who else would put up with her nonsense? The pile of paper on her desk had finally gotten too big for Izaya to ignore, and with his little perk in mood, he had called the woman up and told her to come and sort it. Ha, ha, but no, he'd not been expecting this, nothing like this.
Izaya had known the oaf was stubborn, that was one of the very first things that he had learned about Shizuo. He had known that especially over something like this, something like them and the shift their relationship, or whatever they were calling it now had taken, Shizuo would be even more stubborn. He'd realised that the blonde wouldn't just come running to him and everything would just fall into place. Quite frankly he would have been disappointed if that had been the case, that was dull, it was boring, and he didn't want anything like that. He wanted hot, he wanted interesting, he wanted unpredictable; as unpredictable as a monster. Ha. Ha. Yeah, yeah, he had known that Shizuo would take a few days to dwell and to brood, but he couldn't deny that when each day ended and he hadn't come, there was a part of Izaya that believed that the blonde was never going to come; but then there stood Shizuo, the brute, in all his monstrous beauty. Proving him wrong once again. Ha. Ha.
He looked a little awkward, Izaya didn't blame him, some strange mix of irritation and uncertainty and some other faint look that Izaya could see but couldn't identify. It was curious. He was curious. Shizuo had come; he had done as Izaya had said, he was here. That meant something. Something big. Shizuo wouldn't have come otherwise. He wouldn't have. If the oaf had decided to deny the shift, the change in their relationship, their feelings or whatever, he would have kept on running, he wouldn't have come here. Izaya knew that despite it all Shizuo wasn't one to rush head on into a conflict if it could be helped. Izaya knew that sometimes Shizuo just couldn't help it.
The look that Namie sent his way said it all, she never had been very good at keeping her thoughts and whatever else was in that empty shell hidden. Izaya had been able to read her like a book since the very first day she had stepped before him, really, it was child's play. He'd since taken great pleasure in playing with her, inventing meaningless tasks for her to do just to see what kind of reactions he could coax from her, just to see if she was capable of feeling or whatever. She looked the same as always now, that blank face with the half-cocked eyebrow that told Izaya she was trying to figure out what was going on. Hopeless human, simply hopeless! Izaya resisted the urge to laugh at her, and simply returned the gaze with a rather amused little smirk twisting at his lips from where he sat behind his desk; once again up to his ears in work that he had allowed to pile up, thick and black rimmed glasses resting steadily on the bridge of his nose.
"Ah, is that your dear brother I hear calling for you Namie?" Izaya chortled across the room towards the woman, still stood by the door. "Why don't you trot off and find him. Shizu-chan and I have business to discuss,"
She was fixing him with one of those glares that she seemed so fond of shooting his way now, though the icy expression did little to bother him or make him regret whatever he had said to her, whatever he had done to her. She wasn't perfect, she'd been cruel before, and life has a funny way of paying that kind of thing back. This was just Namie getting what Namie deserved; well, that and also the fact that he just couldn't help pulling her strings to try and prompt something interesting from her. It was like getting blood from a stone, he'd succeed one day. Hadn't he already proved the impossible possible before? He made no move to get up though, and Shizuo's brow was now crinkled somewhat as he attempted to pick up what was happening. His eyes seemed to flick from Izaya to Namie and then back behind him, as if worried that someone would spot him here, that he had been followed.
The woman stepped from the door after a couple of seconds spent no doubt murdering Izaya quite enthusiastically in her mind, heading to her desk to collect her bag, coat and the stack of work that, naturally, he would expect her to have done by the morning. Shizuo stepped in once the doorway was free, lingering awkwardly in her wake, his hands shoved deeply into the pockets of his trousers, brow now crinkled in a deep frown. He seemed to be staring at some spot on the floor a few feet away from himself, not that Izaya had taken to watching him once he had stepped in, as if that would someone make the awkwardness or whatever it was eating away inside that brutish beautiful body of his.
That feeling in Shizuo only seemed to intensify once Namie had left, promptly shutting the door behind her. Izaya had turned his attention mostly back to his work, continuing to jot down notes and scroll through his computer screen, though he still took note in the corner of his eye what the blonde was doing.
"Why don't you go and make yourself comfy? I haven't done anything to the sofas, you know," Izaya hummed out, peeping up from his paper for a brief moment to see that Shizuo still hadn't moved, was still stood by the door with his hands shoved into his pockets, staring at nothing. It was amusing to him, really it was, seeing the monster looking like this. He'd never seen it before, and if the brute had been interesting before, then he was even more so now, more delightful, more captivating, more everything. "You look far too tense over there Shizu-chan~"
The blonde choked back what was obviously intended to be some kind of scoff, some kind of verbal abuse back at him, the result of reflex, years of hating him. Izaya knew this, whatever this was or would be or could be, wouldn't be easy, it wouldn't be straight forward, but the fact that Shizuo was here, the fact that he had come said more than the blonde probably realised.
"I do, huh? Tch," Shizuo muttered, just under his breath, not intending Izaya to answer, which he didn't, though he couldn't help but smile somewhat. There was another pause, and then stiffly, almost robotically, Shizuo unfurled himself and stepped over to one of the long sofas on the other side of the loft. Izaya was still looking down at his work, but he couldn't help but watch the other man in the corner of his eye, both as an old habit and for reasons other than that, new reasons, better reasons. The blonde was still awkward when he sat, his muscles flexing delightfully when he moved, no, no, not that Izaya was looking of course. That would be mad, mad, mad, and he wasn't mad, not quite.
Neither of them made to comment on what was happening, neither of them said a thing about Shizuo being here, about just what that could imply. Izaya guessed that Shizuo was still struggling with that, still wouldn't admit it, or maybe the blonde really was just that damn awkward. He wasn't going to say it either. He didn't think it needed to be said, not yet, soon, but not yet. It could wait, just a bit longer, until this work was done and then maybe after a cup of tea. Then he would stop, he would talk to the brute, and they could tumble into the abyss once more, to a world that neither of them had ever known before.
So a few seconds passed in simple silence, with Izaya scratching down notes and Shizuo letting his eyes skim over the loft that he had never seen before. It was funny, that they could be in the same room, that it could be this quiet with them in the same room, that everything could remain unbroken, whole. This shift in their relationship, whatever it was, whatever it would be, it was obvious now. Something had changed, they had changed, and the proof of that was the silence hanging pleasantly in the air around them. The awkwardness faded as the light did, as the time passed. Shizuo had fumbled in his pocket for his lighter and for his cigarettes. It was still silent, save for the hum of the computer and the sound of breathing and the rustle of paper.
Izaya didn't care for smoking, really, he hated it. Health had always been something important to him, even as a kid, even when he had been too little to really have been caring about it. He'd never liked smoking. No. No. Never. People had used to smoke at Shiki's all the time, Shiki had used to smoke too, and Izaya had crinkled his nose and curled his lip and complained until the older man had stubbed it out just to shut him up. And yet he said nothing to Shizuo, not a word, merely allowing his nose to crinkle a little. There was something enticing about it when Shizuo did it, something about the way it perched between his lips, something about the quiet and calm way in which he went about it. Izaya had never seen Shizuo like this, had never seen a beast so calm, so no, no, no, he said nothing to Shizuo and the blonde said nothing either. Shizuo hadn't changed so much that he was unrecognisable. He wasn't going to stop doing what he normally did just because of this, whatever it was, whatever, yeah. He'd gone back to staring at the floor, inhaling and exhaling, struggling on, just surviving.
It was funny that the atmosphere could be so comforting; it was funny that it could be so pleasant with two supposed enemies sat in the same room. Maybe it was because Shizuo was smoking and maybe it was being Izaya was working, maybe it was because Namie wasn't there or maybe it was because they had both realised the change in them, the shift in their world. Maybe, maybe, maybe; it didn't matter now, not just yet. They weren't talking, weren't doing anything. It was almost as if Shizuo was sat at his own home and not here, as if he wasn't waiting there, on the sofa, just across the room. Neither appeared to be taking much notice of the other, and yet Izaya knew that half of his mind was focused on the man on his sofa. He wondered if the same was true of Shizuo. They would talk later, in a minute, when this work was done and that cigarette was finished. Time was no issue. It didn't matter. There was no hurry, no rush to do anything at all.
Izaya found that it was hilariously funny how he could feel so calm, especially when locked in the same room as the monster, the man with the liquid golden eyes and the nature of a hurricane. Despite it all, despite the fear and the threat and the fact that Shizuo was there, that there was something changing, that the world was falling out again under them both. It was like some twisted thunder storm somehow tamed into a little glass bottle, some delicate balance. It was calm, it was pleasant, and Izaya was— ha. Content.