Work Text:
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
“Nothing But Death,” Pablo Neruda
_ _
They’re terrible at living together, even after nearly three years. They keep strange hours, passing each other like ships in the night, and they wage war over cleaning duties: dirty dishes piled on Shizuo’s bed one morning; a message scrawled on the bathroom mirror, demanding Izaya do something about the mold; a series of escalating post-it notes on the fridge until one of them caves and cleans it out. Whose turn it is to get the shopping is always another point of contention, often involving petty maneuvers like refusing to buy whatever the other has added to the list. Shizuo goes an entire week without milk once, just so that he won’t have to surrender and buy it himself.
Neither of them can cook well - Shizuo doesn’t have the patience and Izaya can’t seem to figure out modern appliances, grumbling constantly about humanity’s tendency to make everything unnecessarily complicated - but they manage with only a few kitchen fires. There’s a drawer full of takeout menus, for backup, and an unspoken schedule for the rare times they’re at the apartment at the same time. If it’s a Wednesday, it’ll be sushi from Simon; on a Friday it’s almost always the Thai place up the block; on a Tuesday it’s curry, and so on.
They go days without talking, sometimes, even when they occupy the same space. Two weeks one summer their only real interaction is a frantic street chase and enough property damage to almost give Tom a heart attack. They’re bad at communicating, Shizuo thinks - or maybe they just don’t see the point of it. It’s not like they need words to understand each other. And they normally leave their fighting to the city, but occasionally, on a bad night, Izaya will eat all the cereal without asking and Shizuo will throw dishware at his head.
He always leans out of the way, faster than any human could ever manage, and levels Shizuo with a deeply unimpressed look - spoon still in his mouth. So Shizuo mutters “fuck you” and goes on the roof to smoke so that he doesn’t put a fist through a wall (again, for the fifth, sixth, seventh time).
They’re ugly and held together with fraying stitches, like Frankenstein’s monster. Most days, they’re a fucking war. But when Shizuo comes back in from his smoke, there’s a fresh box of cereal sitting on the table - an obnoxious smiley-face on a post-it stuck to front. And sometimes, if it’s a been a bad week, he’ll find a box of dango on the counter - his own angry face staring up at him from another post-it note, rendered in sharpie and messily labeled “Shizu-chan” - and it will be enough to make him smile.
_ _
They meet the night Izaya jumps off a roof. It’s pure coincidence, or maybe fate, that Shizuo happens to be walking by - sees the fall and the impact and breaks into a run before he’s fully registered that his legs are moving. And he expects a bloody heap on the pavement, but the guy stands up with a low groan. He looks terrible - leg and arm clearly broken and red seeping through his black shirt - but not like he just fell ten stories.
“What the fuck?” Shizuo says.
“Long story,” the guy says, swaying a little. He’s got a fucking katana strapped to his back and in the glow of the street lamps, his eyes look almost red. “I was just testing a theory.”
“A theory? ”
“Mmmm.”
The guy starts limping forward, but only gets two steps before a grimace twists his features and his legs waver and fold. This time, it’s Shizuo’s arms that move, catching the stranger before he can crumple back to the pavement.
“What theory?”
“That she’s going to be difficult about this,” the guy mutters, pushing off Shizuo’s chest. He still looks like a small breeze could knock him over, but stronger than a few minutes ago.
“Are you high?” Shizuo asks flatly.
Laughter that trails off into a pained cough.
“You need to see a doctor,” he tries next, feeling his eye start to twitch. Why the fuck does he even bother?
“I’m fine,” the guy insists, pressing a hand to probably broken ribs. “It’ll heal.”
Maybe he’s crazy instead of high? But he just survived a ten story fall, and Shizuo’s fairly certain not even his body would be able to manage that. Still, he doesn’t appreciate stubborn idiots, especially when he’s trying to help them.
“Walk more than five steps on your own, then.” That earns him a sharp glare. Shizuo sighs. “At least let me take you to Shinra?”
“Shinra?”
“He’s a doctor.”
Crazy huffs, tries to walk again, and immediately has to brace himself against a nearby streetlamp, panting like he’s just run a marathon. “Okay,” he concedes grudgingly. “He won’t ask questions?”
“No.”
Crazy pushes himself off the streetlamp, sways again, but manages to hold his balance this time. “Fine,” he says, imperious - like he’s a king addressing one of his lowly subjects. “Take me to him.”
Don’t punch him, Shizuo tells himself firmly, even as familiar anger seethes through his veins. Not yet.
_ _
Somewhere on the limping journey to Shinra’s, Crazy says his name is Orihara Izaya.
“Is that your real name?” Shizuo asks, dubious, because it sounds like something out of a fucking novel.
Izaya shrugs. “Does it matter?”
No, he supposes. It really doesn’t.
(He’s still not even sure this isn’t a weird dream or something.)
_ _
Izaya stops just inside the door of Shinra’s apartment, dark eyes blowing wide. It’s the most emotion he’s shown since pitching headfirst off a building and it takes Shizuo by surprise.
“What?”
“There’s a Dullahan here?” Izaya asks, though it once again sounds like a demand.
“A what?”
Izaya shoulders past him, stumbling into the main room where Shinra is already rising to greet them. His coffee table is covered in various tools and there are towels spread over the couch. But it’s Celty that Izaya’s gaze lands on immediately, hovering in the doorway to the kitchen with her distinctive helmet in place.
(Shizuo’s never seen her without it, but everyone has their quirks, right?)
“You’re a long way from home,” Izaya says to Celty - a strange, knowing smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.
Celty slides out her phone and starts typing. Shizuo’s too far away to read what it says, but Izaya arches an eyebrow. “What, you don’t know?”
Shinra is watching the proceedings with open fascination.
More typing. And then Izaya says, “ah, that would explain it.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Shizuo demands, because this is just adding more evidence to the strange dream theory.
Izaya tilts his head, doesn’t look away from Celty. “Do they know?” Type, type, type. “Fine, well, then I guess I don’t need to-” He trails off into another wet, disgusting cough, reaching out to brace himself against the back of Shinra’s chair.
Shinra adjusts his glasses. “Shizuo-san said that you fell off a building.”
“Jumped, actually,” Izaya corrects and wipes a hand across his mouth. It comes away red.
“And that it was ten stories.”
“Actually closer to twelve, I think.”
Shinra nods. “So what are you, exactly?”
Izaya straightens. Smiles again. “Fix my internal bleeding and I’ll tell you.”
Ten minutes later, Izaya is shirtless on the couch and Shinra looks like a kid at Christmas. A very creepy kid at Christmas, considering the manic glint in his eye and the scalpel he’s currently wielding.
“This is amazing. Your body seems to be healing on its own.”
“Not as fast as it should be,” Izaya mutters, eyeing the scalpel with an appropriate amount of trepidation. Shizuo maybe should have warned him about Shinra, but he’s not that nice.
Celty shoves her phone in Izaya’s face. He laughs then winces. “Fine. I guess I can’t hide it from you. I’m a Shinigami. Now want to tell me what a Dullahan is doing all the way in Tokyo?”
A Shinigami? As in a messenger of death? A mythological guardian of souls? And the hell is a Dullahan?
Shizuo blinks down at the skinny kid on Shinra’s couch, looking barely out of his teens, and tries to wrap his head around this. Shinra himself has lit up like a firework, practically vibrating in his seat.
Jesus. He has a headache.
“A Shinigami?” he asks, adjusting his glasses again. “You’re a Shinigami?”
Izaya blinks at him. “Yes. Or I was. I’m not sure about my current status, but that’s a long story and the Dullahan hasn’t answered me yet.”
Celty’s gloved fingers clack against the keys of her phone. This time, Shizuo moves close enough to read it when she holds it up to Izaya.
[I lost my head. I’m looking for it.]
Shizuo’s brain gives up - can only think, with amazing detachment: well that explains the constant bike helmet.
Izaya laughs and shakes his head. “That’s what you get, you know, for carrying it around with you instead of keeping it attached. Honestly, Dullahan are such drama queens. Black robes, headless steeds, buckets of blood, carriages - it’s ridiculous.”
[And Shinigami are better?]
“We’re more discreet,” Izaya says, gaze drifting warily back to Shinra and his scalpel. “Normally, you wouldn’t even be able to see me right now.”
“Why can we see you?” Shinra asks.
Izaya shrugs.
“Let me guess,” Shizuo says, somehow still holding on to his calm, “long story.”
Izaya grins at him, almost manic. “Exactly.”
“You should let me dissect you,” Shinra says, unable to fully contain his excitement any longer. “Comparing the results to Celty would yield an incredible amount of data and allow us to-”
“No,” Izaya says, flat.
Shinra looks genuinely puzzled. “But-”
“Shinra,” Shizuo snaps, rubbing his aching temple, “just fucking fix him, okay?”
Shinra sighs in disappointment, but asks Celty to get the rest of his medical kit.
_ _
Looking back, he chaulks up offering to let Izaya stay at his apartment as a temporary fit of madness. Or maybe how pathetic Izaya looks, covered in bandages and washed out by the pale glow of Ikebukuro streetlights. Or maybe it’s a weird fascination, realizing that he’s looking at an agent of death in almost human form.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter - he isn’t one for circular philosophizing. The point is that he offers - blurts it out in a rush and insists that it’s just for one night - and Izaya accepts with that strange, maddening smile of his.
And that’s really the start of it all.
_ _
“That long story,” he asks Izaya as he unlocks the door to his apartment. “What is it?”
“Oh,” Izaya says, full of clearly false cheer, “I defied Death. And she’s good at holding a grudge.”
_ _
There are many things that Izaya can’t tell him, including the reason for his exile to the mortal realm. When he opens his mouth, static just comes out in the place of his voice - one of the creepiest things Shizuo’s been a witness too, and that includes Shinra in “doctor mode.” And when he tries to write it down, gibberish appears on the page instead of kanji or English or any of the other languages Izaya tries.
(“I figured as much,” he says, frowning down at the scribble-covered notepad. “She likes her secrets.”)
But other things he can. Like the fact that his sword is what he uses to sever souls from their bodies, though it’s lost its power now and seems to be just a regular katana. Or that he used to be able to summon shadows like Celty, and they often looked like black wings sprouting from his back, if he wanted to be dramatic.
Or that he can tell when and how someone will die, especially if that death is coming soon.
(“Poor thing,” he murmurs on the street one day, staring at a dark-haired girl coming out of a shop, laughing with her friend.
Four hours later, her face is all over the news - killed in a hit and run.)
_ _
One night becomes two becomes ten becomes twenty. Izaya eats all his food and hogs his couch and breaks half his appliances, and Shizuo dreams of punching him so hard all the bones break in his body, but he doesn’t kick him out.
(Maybe, he will admit to only himself, it’s because his shitty apartment feels a lot less lonely with an annoying Shinigami camping in it.)
_ _
The first time Izaya calls him “Shizu-chan,” Shizuo hits him with a street sign hard enough to send him flying for nearly a full city block. He picks himself up, none the worse for wear, and regards Shizuo with something close to delight.
“My, my, Shizu-chan, that’s not a talent average humans have. What a monster you are.”
“Shut up,” Shizuo snarls and hurls a vending machine. This one Izaya dodges, letting it crash onto the street behind him, and then he’s running and Shizuo is chasing him through twisting alleys and onto rooftops - until Izaya manages to vanish completely.
Later, after he's managed to calm himself down, he expects to come home to an empty apartment, for all that Izaya didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by the violence, but there is a familiar figure seated at his kitchen table, drumming his fingers against the cheap wood.
“I never gave you a key,” Shizuo points out in exasperation - the latest volley in what is becoming a well-worn argument. He’s starting to wonder if Izaya can also pass through walls and just conveniently failed to mention it.
“Please, I know how to pick a lock, Shizu-chan,” Izaya huffs, amused.
Shizuo flicks the light switch and watches Izaya squint in response to the sudden brightness - his eyes flickering red before returning to their ordinary brown. He looks small, in that oversized coat he’s taken to wearing, and almost fragile. It’s a good mask, Shizuo thinks, for the supernatural darkness that lies underneath.
“You should stop calling me that,” he says, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. Defensive, maybe showing his hand too much, but he doesn’t really care.
“Or what?” Izaya teases. “You’ll throw another vending machine at me?”
“Flea,” Shizuo mutters, for lack of a better response.
“Very original,” Izaya says, standing up. “Most people call me ‘monster’ but that’s you, isn’t it?”
Don’t throw him through the wall, don’t throw him through the wall, don’t throw him through the wall….
“Get out.”
“Make me.”
He fists a hand in the front of Izaya’s shirt, pulling him up onto his toes. Izaya barely blinks. He’s never encountered someone so unafraid of him, except maybe Tom, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Can’t look at it for too long, or contemplate the weird wrench in his stomach at the lack of tension in Izaya’s shoulders, at the smile still just visible in the corner of Izaya’s mouth.
He can’t kill Izaya, no matter how hard he wants to try, and that’s…
He lets go.
Izaya drops back to the floor, rocking on socked feet to keep his balance.
“Don’t eat all my food,” Shizuo grumbles and stalks off to take a shower.
_ _
Izaya has to learn to be human - to remember to eat and sleep and look after himself.
(“Annoying,” he mutters, curled up on Shizuo’s couch after nearly twenty-four hours awake, exhaustion evident in the dark circles bruised under his eyes. “I didn’t miss this.”)
It’s a weird, kind of fascinating process to watch: someone interacting with the world around them for the first time. Izaya’s used to just passing through it, he explains once, observing humans from the safety of a different realm. Now shoulders bump his in a crowd and the wind is cold on his face and food hot and overwhelming and strange in his mouth.
(“I don’t think I like this,” he says, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of dango. Shizuo tells himself not to be offended.)
He declares, after much trial and error, that fatty tuna is his favorite for some godforsaken reason and almost everything else from Russia Sushi seems to be a close second.
“Were you ever human?” Shizuo asks him as they sit in the corner of the park - sunset washing everything gold and strange, including Izaya’s eyes.
“Once,” Izaya says around a mouthful of tuna. “All Shinigami were.”
“Really?”
Izaya shrugs. “It’s how you become a Shinigami. In your eleventh hour, Death will sometimes let you bargain. More time here, but you give up your chance at the afterlife. Instead you have to serve her - roaming the earth, guarding souls, all that.”
“Is that the bargain you made?”
“No.” Izaya tilts his head back to gaze up at the leafy branches overhead. “I just thought the afterlife sounded boring. At least this way, I still exist.”
“You’re crazy,” Shizuo decides, which isn’t really a new assessment.
“Mm, probably,” Izaya agrees easily.
“How did you die?”
Another shrug. “I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.” He stares down at the tuna box in his lap now, gaze somewhere far away. “It was violent, I think, and painful. But then it was over.” He regards Shizuo with what is becoming his trademark smirk. “I honestly don’t understand why you humans are so afraid of it.”
Yeah, he doesn’t really feel like philosophizing about that right now.
“Can you get drunk?”
Izaya’s smirk slips into a contemplative frown. “I don’t know.”
“New experiment,” Shizuo decides, because this is too good an opportunity to pass up. “C’mon.”
Two hours later, they’re perched on a rooftop with a case of beer between them and several empty cans scattered behind them - feet dangling over the ledge. Izaya’s face is flushed and his eyes a little unfocused as he frowns down at his fourth drink of the night.
“I’m not sure I like this,” he says, inflection careful, like he’s choosing each word before it leaves his mouth.
“You can definitely get drunk,” Shizuo says, amused and a little surprised. He’s still holding his one can, only half empty. Learned a long time ago that alcohol and his already hair trigger temper don’t mix well.
Izaya hums and kicks his feet idly against the building. It makes him look about five. “It seems like a pointless activity.”
“It is, for the most part.”
“You humans are so strange,” he says, setting the beer can aside. “So illogical and stupid.”
“What?” Shizuo’s hackles raise but Izaya waves a hand at him.
“Relax, Shizu-chan, I love it. There was a girl once, who had cancer, and I came for her soul at the hospital. She was only ten years old, but she asked if she could bargain. Death typically has a soft spot for children, so I let her. She wanted to trade eternity for thirty more years with her family. Eternity for a few fleeting decades.” Izaya shakes his head. “I came again a few months after her sister’s wedding. She remembered me - seemed happy to see me - and didn’t regret her bargain at all. Ridiculous, right?” His voice is slurred a little, lacking the imperiousness that usually colors it, and his eyes are almost fond looking down at the city lights. “I suppose I can understand. Eternity is boring, after all. But still … logically - your lives are so fragile and yet you cling so tightly to them. Maybe that’s what makes you all so interesting. Or pathetic. I haven’t decided yet.” He wipes a hand over his face. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.”
“Blame it on the alcohol,” Shizuo offers, even though Izaya’s always been something a chatterbox. Loneliness, maybe - the kind Shizuo has felt all his life. He recognizes the wistful note in Izaya’s voice, the uncharacteristic openness, but he isn’t about to say anything.
“Mm,” Izaya agrees. “Right. The alcohol.”
Shizuo sighs and stands up. “C’mon, we should head back.”
“Offering your apartment again, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks, all former traces of vulnerability gone.
“You’ll just break in, anyway.”
“True.”
They clean up the cans and descend back to ground level. Soon the rush of the city swallows them up, still bustling at this late hour. Izaya shoves his hands into the pockets of his ridiculous coat and winces at the noise.
“I think this was sabotage, Shizu-chan.”
“I’m not that cunning,” Shizuo insists, reaching out without thinking to tug Izaya out of the way of a woman with a stroller.
Izaya over balances and crashes into his side. “I don’t think I’m going to drink again,” he decides after he’s managed to right himself.
“Just wait until tomorrow.”
“Eh?”
_ _
The next morning, he finds Izaya at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee and actually looking like the agent of death he’s supposed to be.
“I hate you,” he declares when Shizuo purposefully slams the fridge door closed. “Being mostly human is stupid.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Shizuo says.
Izaya frowns. “Yes … I suppose I will.”
_ _
“All right, how do I die, then?”
“Hm?”
“You can tell how people are going to die, right? So how do I go out?”
“You’ll be crushed by a falling piano next Tuesday.”
“Very funny.”
“Oh trust me, Shizu-chan, it’s going to be hilarious.”
_ _
Izaya takes to carrying a switchblade around with him, since the katana (currently sitting in Shizuo’s closet) is too conspicuous and “feels weird” without its normal spiritual energy. He’s ridiculously good at using the knife, anyway, as Shizuo learns during several of their fights. Those have become almost like a weird game - another facet of their bizarre routine. He’ll see Izaya out on the street and throw the nearest available object at him, which will then lead to a frenetic chase through the city until Izaya shakes him off.
And then he’ll finish work and go back home to find Izaya waiting in his apartment, feet kicked up on his kitchen table, smile in place, and the occasional box of takeout steaming on the counter.
“You know,” Izaya says one night, as Shizuo shrugs out of his vest and unfastens his bowtie. “I still don’t know what you do.”
“I’m a bodyguard, for a debt collector.” Izaya laughs and he glares. “Something funny about that?”
“I’m just appreciating the irony, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says with a dismissive wave. “You collect money and I collect souls and here we are.”
Yeah. Here they are. Ripping up city streets and sharing a tiny apartment - a monster and a Shinigami, and if you asked him what they are to each other, he wouldn’t have a clue.
_ _
“Seriously, how do I die?”
“Food poisoning.”
“That’s worse than the piano.”
“Actually, on Friday you’re going to get bitten by a rabid dog.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Don't worry, I’ll say something mean at your funeral.”
_ _
A year in and Izaya is starting to make a name for himself, selling information. Shizuo purposefully doesn’t ask about it - doesn’t want to know the kind of trouble that idiot is getting himself into - but Izaya seems to be a natural talent. Or maybe, it's easy to manipulate humans when you’ve spent centuries observing them, when you know how they’re going to die and you’ve seen them in their final, terrified moments - dragged them from this life into the next.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he still insists, watching Izaya text away on a recently purchased cell phone (he’s crap at appliances but an almost natural at computers and phones, go figure).
“I’m already dead,” Izaya points out without looking up. Which is another thing Shizuo doesn’t like thinking too much about.
“How long is this supposed to last, anyway?”
Izaya shrugs. “Depends on how long she wants to hold a grudge. Could be five years or fifty - I just have to wait and see.”
“You don’t seem too worried,” Shizuo points out.
Something dark crosses over Izaya’s face. “Trust me, Shizu-chan, there are worse fates.”
That, Shizuo believes.
_ _
A year in and Izaya has become a fixture in his life to a worrying degree. To a point where he’s not sure what it would be like without him around. He fights with Izaya during the day and comes home to him almost every night - either waiting at the table or already asleep on his lumpy couch. Sometimes, Izaya disappears for several days and strange anxiety ties Shizuo stomach up in knots, no matter how many times he reminds himself that Izaya is a fucking immortal Shinigami who can jump off a twelve-story building and be back to normal within a week.
When he is around Izaya still eats all of his fucking food and almost never cleans up after himself and talks Shizuo’s ear off about weird, abstract shit that never really makes much sense. He steals pillows off Shizuo’s bed and clothes out of his closet and in this tiny apartment, they’re always on top of each other, breathing too much of the same air.
One morning, an argument over a broken mug (Izaya’s fault, no matter how much he plays up the innocent act) escalates into Shizuo burying his fist into the living room wall and Izaya’s stupid switchblade pressed up against his throat.
They stare at each other for a long moment, breathing hard.
“I think we should get a bigger apartment,” Shizuo blurts out, not sure where the thought came from. Only that he stopped trying to kick Izaya out eleven months ago. “And you can help pay fucking rent like a normal adult.”
Izaya actually looks thrown off balance for once, eyes widening and lips parting in shock. He recovers quickly, though - fastens his smirk back on. “Best idea you’ve had yet, Shizu-chan.”
_ _
Izaya wants something ritzy and way over Shizuo’s budget, Shizuo wants something cheap and still too small for Izaya’s tastes, so they compromise on a modest two bedroom with an open floor plan and space for Izaya to work.
It’s ridiculous, Shizuo thinks, even as he signs his name on the lease. They’re ridiculous.
“We’re buying new furniture, too,” Izaya insists, grinning at him. “I’m never sitting on your stupid couch again, Shizu-chan.”
Completely, one hundred percent, around the bend ridiculous.
And he still doesn’t know what they are to each other.
(Just that he isn’t really lonely anymore.)
_ _
“You’re going to get run over by a car tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Oh wait, sorry, that’s someone else. You’re going to fall down a flight of stairs and crack your idiot skull open.”
“Sounds thrilling.”
“I’ll have it ingrained on your tombstone. Here lies the great Heiwajima Shizuo, killed by a staircase.”
“Shut up, flea.”
_ _
One night, in the Fall, Shizuo actually catches up to Izaya after a chase, waiting for him on a now almost familiar rooftop. He’s still got a box of fatty tuna in one hand and arches a very unimpressed eyebrow in Shizuo’s direction.
“A plastic elephant. Really?”
“It was the closest thing available,” Shizuo grumbles around the stupid, embarrassed flush he can feel heating his cheeks.
“Do you really detest me that much, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks, which is absurd. Of course, Shizuo doesn’t hate him. They live together and they see each other almost every fucking day and Izaya is the closest thing to … to something that he’s ever had.
“No, that’s not it.”
“Why hurl street objects at me all the time, then? Not that it isn’t fun…”
“Because you can’t die,” Shizuo says before he can stop himself - the words tumbling out on their own. Izaya freezes, staring at him. He shoves his hands into his pockets and looks away, trying to ignore the feeling of Izaya’s gaze boring into the side of his face. “I can’t kill you. I probably could barely even hurt you. So I don’t have to worry about…” he trails off, face still on fire and furious at himself for this weakness. More for his inability to put anything important into words.
“So you try to control yourself all day,” Izaya says slowly, like he’s putting a puzzle together. “And then let go when you see me, because you don’t have to worry about seriously injuring me.”
“Yeah.”
Izaya makes a strange sound: almost a laugh, but strangled and cracked down the middle. “I was wrong about you, you know,” he says with a shake of his head. And this smile is different, soft around the edges. “I keep calling you a monster, Shizu-chan, but you’re so painfully human.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Shizuo asks, grabbing the front Izaya’s shirt to pull him off-balance.
“Whatever you want it to mean,” Izaya says, unfazed as always.
Shizuo shakes him. “Are all Shinigami as fucking cryptic as you are, flea?”
Another smirk. “Only the good ones.”
And Shizuo kisses him. Right there, on a rooftop framed in moonlight like every goddamn movie cliche. Just bends down before his brain can catch up and presses their mouths together - swallows the startled noise Izaya makes, and uses the fingers still tangled in his shirt to pull him even closer.
It’s messy, probably too rough, but Izaya kisses back for a few incredible seconds, then puts a palm on his chest and pushes him away. “You don’t want to make this mistake,” he says quietly, something like genuine sadness weighing the words down.
Who says it’s a mistake? Shizuo wants to ask, but Izaya twists out of his grip and disappears before he gets the chance - the shadows swallowing him whole.
_ _
“You’re not going tell me, are you?”
“You don’t want to know, Shizu-chan. Trust me.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ve never been afraid.”
“Fine, you get electrocuted in a freak storm two weeks from now.”
“Izaya. ”
“It’s incredibly tragic.”
_ _
It doesn’t feel like a mistake when he returns to a conspicuously empty apartment, and it still doesn’t feel like a mistake when the sun’s come up and he realizes he spent the night pacing holes in their nice floor, muttering to himself under his breath.
He’s frustrated, angry, even - at himself, for trying; at Izaya, for making everything so fucking complicated all the time - but if Izaya were to change his mind, he’d kiss him again in a heartbeat. It feels natural, like a step they’ve always been moving towards, ever since they met in that alley all those months ago - Izaya rising from the pavement like a bloody ghost and Shizuo’s small, isolated world tilting on its axis.
The front door clicks and there is Izaya, tired and wary in the pale morning light breaking through the blinds.
“Look-” Shizuo starts with no real idea what he wants to say, just desperate to keep the silence from stretching out too long.
Izaya crosses the ocean of space between them, sways up on his tiptoes, and slots his mouth over Shizuo’s. Shizuo moves into it on instinct, shifting to wrap an arm around Izaya’s back. The kiss lasts seconds, feels like forever, and when they separate Shizuo feels hot all over and fuzzy at the edges, trying to string words together.
“I ... thought you said I shouldn’t make this mistake.”
“You shouldn’t,” Izaya agrees, solemn. “It’s a terrible one.”
“Then why...?”
“I’m selfish, and stupid, and I think you’ve infected me.”
“Infected you?” Shizuo asks, arching an eyebrow.
Izaya sighs. They still haven’t moved apart and this close, in this light, his eyes are as red as blood. “You’re so … human.”
“I still don’t know what that means.”
“Forget it,” Izaya decides and shifts up for another kiss, longer than the first - tongue brushing the seam of Shizuo’s lips, sliding into his mouth, and slender fingers tangled in his hair. “Take me to bed.”
It’s the same demanding tone he used the night they first met, but this time Shizuo merely rolls his eyes and lifts him off his feet, just for the way his expression melts immediately into shocked outrage.
“Put me down, you protozoan,” he snaps. “I’m a fucking god of death.”
“Not right now, you’re not,” Shizuo says and doesn’t let go until he can dump Izaya face first onto his bed, grinning at the muffled "oof" Izaya lets out.
And he expects this to be awkward, uncertain - they’re not gentle people, or even good ones. Most days, they’re goddamn terrible to each other. But when Izaya leans back, Shizuo’s hands braced on either side of his head, and says, only half joking, “I haven’t done this in a very long time,” it’s easy for Shizuo to reply, “it’s okay, I’ve got you,” and mean it. More than he wants to admit, even to himself.
“Yeah,” Izaya says with an amused huff, reaching up to unfasten Shizuo’s bow tie, “you do.”
_ _
It’s fucking good. It’s the best thing Shizuo’s ever felt, in all of his two decades of life, and the second time is even better, once they’ve gotten most of their uncertainty out of the way.
(“Fuck,” Izaya rasps beneath him, trembling and sweat-drenched and red red eyes and so fucking gorgeous, it’s a little unreal. “Fuck.”
Shizuo presses their foreheads together, keeps his pace slow and one hand on the leg Izaya has slung over his hip. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”
Izaya laughs, breathless and overwhelmed, and it’s the most human he’s ever sounded.)
He falls asleep sometime after round three and wakes up to a darkened room and an empty bed. He can’t find his boxers amidst the clothes strewn over the floor, so he pulls a fresh pair out of his dresser and wanders into the living room. Izaya is standing in front of the open doors to the balcony, staring out at the lights of the city.
“Are those my cigarettes?” he asks when he approaches and sees what’s in Izaya’s hand.
“Just the one,” Izaya says.
“And those are definitely my boxers.”
Izaya shrugs. “You ripped mine.”
“I did not.”
“Well I couldn’t find them.”
Shizuo shakes his head and leans on the opposite side of the doorframe. The air is chilly, sharp with the beginnings of winter, but Izaya doesn’t seem to notice the cold. He’s got marks on his neck from Shizuo’s teeth, another on his shoulder, and his pale skin seems to go on for miles in the silver of the moonlight.
“Something wrong?” Shizuo asks, a little thrown by the contemplative expression on Izaya’s face.
“I would be sad,” Izaya says, “if you died.”
“Really?” Shizuo says, still off-balance. Is this a compliment? From Izaya’s tone, it doesn’t seem like one.
“And I shouldn’t be.” Izaya takes a long, expert drag of the cigarette and blows out a plume of smoke. His free hand comes up to press against his chest, right over where his heart is - Shizuo heard it beating in bed, even though nothing about Izaya’s body makes sense. He can’t die and yet in every other way, he’s currently human. He bleeds, his bones break, he gets hungry, his lungs cycle air, and his heart pumps blood.
Shizuo supposes they’re alike in this aspect, too. Impossibilities, both of them.
“I shouldn’t care at all,” Izaya continues. “I shouldn’t be able to feel like-” He cuts himself off abruptly. “This is your fault.”
“I’ve infected you?” He tries to keep the amusement out of his tone, but isn’t sure he succeeds, judging by the offended furrow of Izaya’s brow.
“Yes. With your … humanness.”
“Sorry about that,” Shizuo says, and isn’t really sorry at all.
Izaya shoots him a wry look. “Death is good at pettiness sometimes, you know. She might take me away just because of this. Besides, I’m sure this breaks numerous cosmic rules.”
“Since when do you care about rules?”
Izaya snorts. “Never. I’m just stating facts, Shizu-chan.”
“Well, I’d be sad,” Shizuo offers. “If you went away.”
It doesn’t seem like enough to cover the enormity of what he’s feeling right now - so deep and strange and unexpected that he’s terrified to look at it for too long - but it’s probably as close to a confession as either of them is capable of getting.
“She won’t give me a choice,” Izaya warns.
Shizuo plucks the cigarette from his fingers to take a drag of his own, ignoring Izaya’s answering glower. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“You’re too narrow-minded.”
“And you overthink everything.”
Izaya shakes his head, but there’s a smiling tugging at his mouth. Shizuo stubs out the cigarette and reaches down to take Izaya’s hand, not letting himself freak out over the uncharacteristic tenderness of the gesture - they can go back to throwing shit at each other tomorrow. “For now, come back to bed. Or I’ll carry you.”
If looks could kill, he’d be dead on the spot. “Don’t you dare.”
And just for that, Shizuo picks him up, laughing at the horrified squawk Izaya lets out as he carries him back to the bedroom.
_ _
They’re terrible at living together, they’re terrible to each other, they’re Frankenstein's monster - most days they’re a fucking war. But there is dinner on a new couch with Izaya’s socked feet in his lap and there are random doodles in bright post-its on the fridge in the morning and there is a body curled up against his at night.
It’s a life and it’s his and somewhere along the way, he’s realized how badly he doesn’t want to lose it.
It scares him. More than he’d ever admit.
_ _
“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says to him on a normal Thursday evening. “Don’t go out tonight.”
He frowns from his spot near the door, vest already almost buttoned. “I have to meet Tom. I already told you that.”
Izaya looks up from his computer screen with an expression Shizuo has never seen and isn’t nearly good enough at people to classify. “Don’t go out tonight.”
“I have. To meet. Tom. It’s for a job, Izaya, I can’t just-”
“Shizuo,” Izaya says, standing up. All the words dry up immediately - die right there on his tongue, because Izaya has never called him that. “If you go out there tonight, you’ll die.”
The raw desperation in his voice is a punch to the gut. “I know,” Shizuo jokes weakly. “Food poisoning, right? Or stairs? An escalator?”
“No,” Izaya whispers, and Shizuo’s positive this is a whole new host of rules he’s breaking here. “No, none of those. You’ll die, Shizu-chan, do you understand?” His hands are curled into trembling fists against the tabletop, and his eyes are raw and vulnerable and half-frantic.
Shizuo puts down his shoes. “Okay. Okay, I’ll stay home.”
Izaya’s shoulders slump in obvious relief. “Good.”
Shizuo heads towards the couch, determined to talk more about whatever this is, but halfway there Izaya’s phone vibrates on the desk, startling them both as it shatters the fragile hush that’s descended over the room.
After a moment of hesitation, Izaya scoops it up and schools his voice to his neutral, pleasant one when he says, “hello?”
He can’t control his expression, though. It’s like he’s been cut open and Shizuo can see everything: the distressed wrinkle between his brows, the small twitch in the corner of his mouth, the subtle tightening of his grip on the phone.
“Okay,” he says eventually. “I’ll be right there.” He hangs up and pockets the phone. Eyes Shizuo warily. “Something’s come up. I shouldn’t be gone long, though, so-”
“I won’t go anywhere,” Shizuo promises him, watching him shrug on his trademark coat.
He nods and actually leans up to peck Shizuo on the cheek in a rare display of affection. “Thank you.”
And then he’s gone, door closing and locking behind him. Shizuo breathes out slow into the silence of the apartment, trying to separate out the tangle of emotions inside of him. Honestly, he’s much calmer than he expected to be, in a situation like this. For once in his goddamn life he actually has a plan - so maybe that’s it.
He goes into the bedroom they’ve started to share and retrieves Izaya’s katana from its normal place in the closet. The saya is as red as Izaya’s eyes in the right kind of light and when he unsheathes it, the blade gleams - still in perfect condition. He feels a small pinprick of guilt for what he’s about to do, but not much. Not nearly enough to change his mind.
Because for all that Izaya knows about Death, there is still something he can’t truly understand - something Shizuo, as a human, knows in his core: it will always come for you. No matter how often you come back stronger, no matter how many times you cheat it, in the end it always wins. And his card is up. Even if he manages to avoid it tonight, it will find him tomorrow, or the day after that, or next week.
Unless he manages to turn the tables. Unless he offers it something in return.
_ _
“So how do you bargain?” Shizuo asks one night, over dinner. “With Death.”
“You need a Shinigami,” Izaya says, leaning over to steal one of his sushi rolls. “If they agree to it, you write your name in your blood on their blade. That summons her.”
“So you have to convince the Shinigami first? Then Death?”
Izaya arches an amused eyebrow. “Well it isn’t supposed to be easy, Shizu-chan. Otherwise everyone would do it.”
_ _
He doesn’t really want to call Death to the middle of his living room, so he opts for the roof instead. Also, it has a nice flair of drama that he thinks Izaya would appreciate, once he was done murdering Shizuo for this little stunt.
He takes a deep breath, clings to this uncharacteristic calm, and slices open his palm. Writes his name with a timorous finger and waits. It’s a long shot, Izaya said the sword currently doesn’t have any power, but -
The blade flares, glows - a brilliant, near overwhelming blue - and the shadows to his left move. Shift and twist and condense until there is a woman standing there. She’s taller than him, is the first thing he notices, and just as thin. The second is that she’s beautiful - pale skin covered in intricate tattoos and long black hair floating around her face as if she were underwater.
(She’s not at all what he expected, but he supposes that this is just one manifestation of the hundreds, thousands, that she is capable of.)
“Heiwajima Shizuo,” she says and her voice echoes like it’s coming from everywhere at once. Or maybe multiple voices all blended together. Either way, it’s fucking terrifying. “Why am I not surprised?”
Her eyes are dark and fathomless as an abyss, but he forces himself to meet them. To not show any of his fear. (Though it’s almost refreshing, being afraid of something besides himself.) “You shouldn’t blame him.”
It’s not the first thing he intended to say and her eyes narrow. “Why not? He talks far too much.” She leans closer and he can feel the temperature plummet - fast enough to prick at his skin like a hundred needles. “He loves you,” she declares. “And you love him. How foolish.”
“I’m human, remember?” Shizuo points out through the lump in his throat at having everything spelled out so blunt and inescapable.
“He isn’t.”
“He was, though, right? Once.”
Death folds her arms across her chest. Her robes flutter, moved by a nonexistent breeze. “I knew it was a danger, banishing him here. He’s gotten himself into an even bigger mess.”
Well. He can’t really refute that.
“I want to bargain,” he says instead.
“I shouldn’t let you,” Death counters. “This was meant to be a punishment for his defiance and instead of learning his lesson, he’s continued to break important rules.”
Shizuo blows out a breath, reminds himself that he can't punch Death (no matter how much he wants to right now), and swallows his furious pride. “Please.”
“What do you want?” Death asks, circling him.
“More time.” Isn’t that what everyone asks for? “With him.”
Death stops, frowns. The shadows seem to be following her, hovering at her back like something alive.
“Come on,” Shizuo presses, dimly aware of the blood still dripping from the cut on his palm and the sword gripped in a shaking hand. “What does it matter to you? A decade or two is nothing, right? We’re flickers. And after that, you get me for eternity.”
“And you’d give it up. For him?” She already knows the answer, but she’s going to make him say it.
Another fortifying inhale. “Yes.”
She tilts her head, considering. Shizuo forces himself to be still, to wait. Tries to keep his expression as neutral as possible and watches his breath hang like clouds in the frigid air.
“I won’t tell you the amount of years I’m giving you,” she says at last. His legs tremble. “And this isn’t a vacation. He’s going to work for me again. But.” She sighs. “I will allow him to travel between the realms.”
“Thank you,” Shizuo breaths, wondering if he should bow. “Thank you. ”
Death sniffs. “I am not without mercy, Heiwajima Shizuo. But tell Izaya he owes me. And that I’ll be checking in on him.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She nods. The shadows shift again and in a blink, she’s gone. In her wake, warm air rushes back in, thawing his aching lungs, and his legs finally give out, sending him to his knees with a gasping exhale.
Fuck. Holy fuck.
He’s shaking, he realizes, all over, and his heart is ready to beat right out of his chest. He wants to laugh, or maybe scream, and fucking hell he didn’t sign up for any of this shit.
(He doubts he’d want it any other way, though, terrifying encounters with Death and all.)
_ _
Minutes or hours later, he gets his legs working enough to carry him back downstairs. Izaya is pacing in the living room when he staggers through the front door. Looks up at him with red, furious eyes.
“What the fuck did you do?” he snaps. “No, never mind, I’m tied to that fucking sword - I know exactly what you did.” He rakes a hand through his already messy hair. “Idiot.”
Shizuo drops the sword on the couch, never wanting to pick it up again. His palm is still bleeding and he turns toward the kitchen and the first aid kit he knows is stashed under the sink, but Izaya intercepts him, bandages already in hand.
“Idiot,” he says again, dumping alcohol into the cut and ignoring Shizuo’s hiss of pain. “I didn’t ask you to do this.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Shizuo grumbles. “I’m capable of making my own decisions. But you knew it would come to this, right?”
Izaya pauses in the middle of winding gauze around Shizuo’s hand. “I … was hoping I could bargain instead.”
“Yeah, well, I beat you to it.”
“Idiot,” Izaya says a third time - seems to have run out of insults. “What did you ask for?”
Shizuo shrugs. “Same thing everyone asks for.”
“And how much did she give you?”
“Give us.” Izaya’s head snaps up. “She didn’t say.”
“U-us?” This was almost all worth it, just for the flabbergasted look on Izaya’s face right now.
Smothering a smile, Shizuo fishes around in his pockets for the cigarette he needed twenty minutes ago. “Yeah. Us. She said she’d give us time. But you’ll probably have to start working for her again. Oh, and you owe her big time. And you talk way too much, but I already knew that.”
Izaya is still gaping up at him. Then he laughs, incredulous. “I guess that explains the message.”
“Message?”
Izaya points to the window and now Shizuo sees it. One of their balcony doors has been almost completely covered in a thin layer of frost. And in the frost, written in a messy hand: you’re welcome, brat.
“Oh.”
“She’s so fucking dramatic,” Izaya mumbles, entirely missing the hypocrisy of that statement. “I can’t believe-” His head whips towards the couch and he moves over to pick up the katana, pulling it free from its saya. The blade is glowing, still, but much fainter than before. “Huh. Power’s back.”
“Guess she wasn’t joking about the working for her again part.”
“Of course she wasn't.” Izaya sheathes the sword again. Shakes his head. “I can’t believe you.”
“I’m never going to regret it,” Shizuo says, which is the only way he can think to shape the I love you bouncing around in his head without sounding like too much of a pathetic sap.
“Good,” Izaya says, gaze soft - and maybe that’s his answer, that’s I love you, too.
Shizuo watches him set the sword on his desk, running a finger over the intricate saya - silver, flowing lines etched into the red background. He said once, that they take whatever shape a soul wants to see, and right now, Shizuo could swear they're flowers, blooming from dark, desolate earth.
But that’s probably nonsense.
“So,” Izaya says, “what do we do now?”
Shizuo grins, full of giddy relief and slowly draining terror, and feeling more desperately, incredibly alive than he thinks he’s ever been. “What we’ve been doing, idiot. Live.”
Izaya laughs, bright and loud, and crosses the room to pull him into a kiss.
Fin.