Author's Note: I've been cursed with a plague of plot bunnies and a case of writer's block right at the same time, so basically my writing has kind of run face first into a wall. So this is kind of a filler really, the big emotional stuff will be dealt with in the next chapter~~~~. /keels over/

The room around him was only dimly lit by the handful of light rays slipping in through the windows to reach the cracks of the apartment. It was always a time that the raven found enjoyable, beautiful. At sunrise, everything is luminous, but nothing is ever clear. A strange in between time, one of transition, one of magic and uncertainty and one that always had prompted only the best and most fabulous reactions from his humans, his playthings, those little, little pawns. Izaya had often marvelled at the beauty of the sunrise or the magnificence of the full moon, but he found it impossible now to fathom the world in which he found himself when he awoke. A new world, one that was entirely different to what he had once known, exciting, dangerous, uncertain.

Izaya allowed his body to stretch as it dug its way back into consciousness, clawing at wakefulness like some kind of languid, lazy cat stretching after a long nap in the afternoon sun. Muscles ached, deliciously, delightful, a tingling reminder of what they had felt the night before, clenching and unclenching and rolling under that pale skin. He could feel the whisper of sheets against his body, and half wondered when they had been thrown over him. Had Shizuo and he done that before sleep had closed in on them both? His hair stuck up, raven strands as unruly and vulgar as he had once been, as a child, and there was a definite need to shower soon after he got up. And yet there was no rush, hadn't he already decided that? Izaya was still clawing through that initial haze of sleep and allowing the details to slink back to him along with the tingle of his skin, the delightful ache of his limbs.

"I wasn't expecting you to stay," Izaya laughed out, rolling to his back. The sheets were cold beside him, though rumpled from where someone had lay. Shizuo might have woken up to find that he regretted it, that he had forgotten what had happened or some other pathetic thing that the oaf was prone to do, but he hadn't left. The weight at the end of the bed told Izaya that Shizuo was still there.

"Tch," was all the reply he received, and he let out another laugh, sitting himself up to prop his back against the headboard. His arms raised in another stretch, once again allowing him to delight in the dull ache of the satisfied and sated muscles. The blonde in question had remained on the side he had fallen asleep on, though had moved down to sit at the edge at the bottom. The covers were pooled at his waist too, and that was enough to tell Izaya that he hadn't moved, was still bare, flushed, an expanse of golden skin. His brow was furrowed, forehead crinkled in such a way that Izaya could see there was some serious thinking going on under that thick skull.

He wriggled forward when Shizuo said nothing else, down the bed a little, one hand rising to reach out, as if to cup at the blonde's cheek like one might caress a lover they'd known for years and not an old enemy. Shizuo's face turned before his fingers could even draw close enough to feel the heat from the skin, turning to look away from the bed, away from him, a pinch of red peeping across his nose, though whether that was due to embarrassment or frustration of some kind of impending rage, Izaya didn't know. It didn't stop him finding it appealing, didn't stop him inwardly laughing that now everything about the blonde seemed to be drawing him in. Well, well, that mysterious air, that unpredictability, hadn't that been what made him so interesting before?

He let his hand linger in the air for a second or so, before the fingers curled back up and he dropped it once more to the cream of the bed sheets, still crumpled from the night before. He couldn't help but let a little smile slip onto his lips, twisting them up, at Shizuo's reaction. He knew it wouldn't be as simple as having sex again and then confessions of love and whatever the fuck else to swiftly follow after. He didn't want it to be that simple, and was quite sure that he wasn't going to be the first to fall and utter those words anyway. Of course the brute would be stubborn; it was in his nature, that captivating, ugly, hopelessly fascinating nature. He was imperfect, ruined and marred by that strength of his, by his own anger, like a broken toy or a scratched record; not quite broken, not quite new.

Love isn't finding a perfect person though, Izaya had long since known this, especially after Shiki, after that, Shiki hadn't been perfect, no, no, far from it. It was about seeing an imperfect person perfectly. Izaya guessed he had reached the point of recognition with Shizuo, that the monster was the man who had changed him, pulled him under. Izaya guess he had passed that point, accepted it, and had started to look at Shizuo, at the oaf, that beautifully brutish man, for what, no, no, for who he really was. Yeah, yeah, it was all rather mad, wasn't it? Mad, mad, mad, and yet Izaya had not a problem in the world anymore, not now that he had gained the control over those spiralling feelings of his once again.

"So what happens now?" Shizuo questioned in a low voice. His face was still downcast for a moment, brows furrowed, but when Izaya sighed, he looked up, those golden eyes meeting Izaya's halfway.

"Isn't that my line?" The raven quipped back, though with only half of the teasing as normal and another sigh lacing those words like some kind of ghost. Even he was unable to escape from whatever fog had fallen upon them. This was what it had all been leading to, wasn't it? This talk, whatever came with it, what happened because of it? Tomorrow had finally come, and the pair of them couldn't run away without an answer anymore. Izaya knew that. Shizuo knew it too.

Another silence fell, and Izaya moved down again, slow, slow, slow like he had been before. That same hand reached out again, though this time to reach for its partner, its double, the long fingered hand that was currently propping Shizuo up at the end of the bed. When cool, pale fingers closed around his this time, the blonde didn't move, didn't flinch, simply lowered his gaze as if their joined hands, loosely bound, would somehow give them all the answers they needed.

"What are we supposed to do?" Shizuo questioned again, a rumble of frustration tumbling out. Izaya wasn't sure if it was directed at himself or at him, didn't question it. Everything was different, everything. This wasn't something that was easy, it just wasn't, and even he wasn't sure where it was going, where he had really seen it or wanted it to go.

"Anything!" He bit in, "Something!"

Shizuo looked up at that, looked up from their hands to Izaya's face again. There was that emotion in the gold depths again that Izaya couldn't place, something that shimmered and burned and swam. He didn't like it, he wanted to know what it was, didn't like not knowing.

"So long as we don't just sit here," the raven sighed, rolling his eyes and curling his hand back up and away from Shizuo's. They couldn't go back to how things were before, no, no, that path was out, up in flames, closed off to them forever. They could only go forward from it now, but Izaya didn't know what that entailed. So many variables still had to be accounted for, so many questions still needed answering, and things still needed analysing. He had wanted the blonde to come, to acknowledge that he had fallen too, into the depths, the abyss, but Izaya hadn't planned for what came after that. Maybe, maybe, maybe he had never expected to get this far, maybe he just hadn't known what he wanted to happen. He guessed it was some odd mix of the two.

"If I thought you were messed up before…" Shizuo muttered, another bitter sigh slipping between his lips, as freely as if it were alive. A cigarette sounded like a great idea now, something, anything to help him think, to understand what was going on and what was meant to happen. Whoever would have thought he and the louse would end up in a place like this? Not him, not Izaya. No, no, no. He didn't know what to think, still didn't. Maybe his words were more of a reassurance to himself than to the other man. He didn't know, he didn't. But Izaya didn't know either, and there was something in that, something comforting. "We just— we're not supposed to— we aren't supposed to feel like this, whatever the fuck this is,"

"You know, I was once told that when two people are meant to be together, their hearts resonate with such intensity that the other's heart can hear that call," Izaya half chuckled, now running a hand through his hair and leaning back against the headboard once again, allowing his eyes to close for a moment or two and shut out the stronger light that was now reaching in with rude fingers. "They say it's possible to hear that call from far, far away and that the other heart will answer to that call someday. Maybe that was why you hated me; maybe you heard your own heart all those years ago and just didn't like what it said,"

"That's bullshit," Shizuo scoffed, his gaze settling on the raven, an amused smile of his own tweaking his mouth in a somewhat bitter, somewhat glum manner. Maybe Izaya had been right, maybe it really was true that only a monster can love a monster, and they were certainly a pair, weren't they?

"Probably," Izaya agreed, not opening his eyes, even when he felt the weight at the bottom of the bed shift closer, when he felt Shizuo settle into a seated position next to him, warm skin brushing against his. "But it makes sense, doesn't it?"

Shizuo laughed, but the sound was far off, and Izaya could already feel sleep grabbing at him again, pulling him back under its spell. Yeah, yeah. Maybe another hour or so asleep would make this thinking easier, would give him more ideas. Later, they could make this decision later, no rush, no rush at all, time was still, slow, slow, slow. Darkness was closing in around him, and then a warmth like liquid gold, something that felt like arms and a chest and the steading pounding of a heartbeat in his ear, slow, slow, slow and then a final, low voice that he barely heard before sleep closed in again.

"Maybe, maybe it does,"