Work Text:
When one heard the names Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo, one did not think “couple”. Oh no, those names were synonymous with intense dislike and property damage. They were also compared to being dangerous and to be avoided at all costs, depending on when and where they were spotted. Like at the current moment, with Shizuo in hot pursuit of Izaya, who was cackling and taunting the blond as they left a wake of disaster behind them.
But not too far back in time, Shinra knew they had their little secret relationship. That the chasing was all done in the name of flirting, and that the two would have secret meet-ups where hands were held and soft moments were abundant. Shinra also knew that the two of them had broken up due to a major misunderstanding. One that, if they had just talked about it like the almost adults they had been, would have cleared up things. Truly, Shinra could never understand why they hadn't done that one simple thing when they had been able to do so beforehand, but it was in the past, and honestly, Shinra didn't have the patience to sit the two down and make them talk it out.
But Celty, his beloved, was sick and tired of it, and, having heard the story all the time, was ready to break the decade-long feud between the two to try and bring some sort of peace to Ikebukuro.
“Celty, My Love, this is a bad idea,” Shinra whined as he watched his beloved pace back and forth in their living room. Celty turned to him, fingers dancing over her phone’s keyboard before she turned it toward him.
Something needs to be done! If you say that they were once in love, and they broke up because of a misunderstanding, there are unresolved feelings that need to be shared. Especially when others, like the woman Shizuo had tried to date and got hurt and told him he scared her, are being brought into the middle of everything.
Shinra sighed after he finished reading, but he knew she wasn't wrong. But that didn't mean that Shizuo was going to forgive and forget easily. And Izaya was just as stubborn, so there was no telling if he would relent either. Just as he was about to point this out, the doorbell went off, echoing awkwardly in the apartment as though even it knew this was probably a bad idea.
Before Shinra could stop her, Celty walked to the door and opened it. There, on the other side of the door, was Shizuo, looking tired.
“Hey, Celty.” He greeted, nodding his thanks when Celty invited him in with a happy gesture toward the couch. “What did you want me here for?”
Celty moved to type on her phone then. You’ll see. She typed, making the blond raise an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything else; he just shrugged and nodded his acceptance before waiting, then headed to the couch and sat down heavily. Shinra cringed at the action, seeing how tired Shizuo was. This was not a good thing, as Izaya arrived with a short fuse.
Before he could alert Celty to this, the door was knocked on in a playful manner that had Shizuo perk up like he had a radar for what chaos was about to enter without having to see the one who would cause it. Shizuo’s eyes narrowed at the door, his shoulders tensing as Celty opened the door.
“Oh my! I wasn't expecting Shizu-Chan to be here when you invited me!” Orihara Izaya’s cheery tone bounced off the walls just as ominously as the doorbell had. Shizuo was to his feet before Shinra could really say anything to keep the situation calm.
“Celty, what the hell?! Why is the Flea here?” Shizuo growled as he glared at Izaya from behind his sunglasses while Izaya moved further into the apartment. Before they could move to do anything harmful, however, Celty’s smoke formed her scythe, and she held it between the two before they could make any moves toward violence.
Sit down! Celty’s text-to-speech said, robotic and odd, considering she never used it unless she had to. Shizuo growled but begrudgingly sat back down. Izaya took the couch opposite Shizuo, a small, annoyed smile on his face.
“So this is an intervention?” Shinra said from off to the side as Celty stood at the head of their coffee table and looked between the two on the couches.
“Intervention?” Shizuo growled, his voice confused as he sent a sideways look toward Shinra.
“Whatever for?” Izaya asked as he stared down Celty with a cocky, yet fake, innocent sneer.
You both need to talk about what happened in the past that made you go from close to mortal enemies! Ikebukuro can't take much more of you two fighting. Celty’s text-to-speech said, all while the Dullahan put her hands on her hips and leaned forward like she was trying to intimidate the two men. Shizuo physically flinched back into the couch with a shocked snarl. Izaya’s face went blank as he also leaned back into the couch, his arm thrown over the back as he crossed his legs.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Izaya said, voice cool as he looked over at Shizuo with a smirk, who was glaring at him now.
“Yeah? If the guilty party won't speak, then there isn't a point.” He snapped, teeth grinding together while his fingers itched for the cigarettes in his pocket.
“Guilty party? Shizu-Chan, I think you’re the one twisting the facts here. Pretty sure you were the guilty one.” Izaya said, tone sharp as his smirk turned lopsided, as though he was forcing himself to keep it up.
“The fuck you say? You were the one who jumped to conclusions! I tried to explain, and you told me to fuck off!” Shizuo snapped, looking close to jumping over the coffee table.
“I didn't just jump to conclusions, I had proof! And your explanation was a bunch of stuttering and rambling nonsense!” Izaya snapped back, his hand not resting on the couch back, twitching toward his pocket where his infamous pocket knife was probably located.
Shinra groaned as he listened to them start spouting the same arguments from back when the split happened. Misread emotions, out-of-context texts, overly friendly tones, and moving on too quickly after the breakup. Shinra could tell that this was going to go nowhere, and even Celty’s text-to-speech was being ignored as Shizuo and Izaya resorted to insults back and forth. Honestly, he could have put an end to this before it happened back then, as he had all the information at the time, and he could do so now. The question is whether they would listen now when they were too hurt back then.
“Okay, that's enough! You're ignoring my darling Celty, and I'm so tired of you two arguing. You’ll both sit here quietly and wait while I go grab something.” He said, loudly, loud enough to make Shizuo and Izaya stop to look at him in surprise.
Shizuo shifted uncomfortably as he sat in the living room of Izaya’s penthouse, the two quiet after reading everything Shinra had given them before being shoved out of his and Celty’s apartment. The quiet was suffocating, and quite frankly, neither looked like they wanted to break it. Too many hurts and too much resentment was still burning within them.
“So… you really were talking to a group partner for an assignment.” Izaya said after a while. “And you were going to her house to work on the assignment. The staying over was because it was late… and you called your parents to let them know you wouldn't be home. And the girl's parents had you sleep in the living room on the couch… and cleaned your uniform for you out of courtesy when it was clear what had happened.” Now the man was ranting the facts out, picking up speed as he reiterated what had been read.
Shizuo didn't know how to stop what looked like the other man spiraling. When they were in high school, and dating, he had an idea or two that calmed the other down, but there was no guarantee the same thing would work now. But fuck if he wasn't gonna try.
“Izaya, calm down!” He said, voice tight as he got off the couch he was on and walked to where he was standing next to the other. Izaya was still in his spiral, words coming out alongside the slightly high giggles of a nervous breakdown. Yeah, okay, so, shouting his actual name didn't work… that meant that he had to resort to the next idea.
“Fucking… Flea don't get pissed at me for this.” Shizuo said before he grabbed Izaya’s chin and forced him to look over at him before slamming his lips to Izaya’s. The other man’s “mmph?!” was a clear sign of his surprise, and the fact that it did seem to stop the other in his tracks made Shizuo internally sigh with relief as he started to pull away. But then hands grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him in closer, making his eyes snap open wide in shock. Now it was his turn to “mmph?!”.
After a few minutes of the kiss deepening, the need for air made the two separate, eyes locked on one another as they panted and dragged air back into their lungs. Izaya looked surprisingly disheveled, while Shizuo, himself, knew his appearance was not much better.
“That was extremely forward Shizu-Chan.” Izaya purred after a moment of them just staring at one another, “miss me that much?”
Shizuo's brain short-circuited for a moment at the question. In all honesty… Did he miss dating Izaya? He did have a crush on that woman a long time ago, after they had broken up, but it did seem like a rebound crush. And for the longest time, he had tried to get Izaya to listen to him until he had given up due to the other being set on his version of events. But he couldn't deny that he missed the soft touches the other gave him long ago and the lack of fear in regards to his strength. He missed being able to be close to someone without the fear of them leaving him because of who he. Getting love from someone who wasn’t his brother.
Oh… He did miss Izaya.
Enough for his heart to hurt from where it was beating audibly in his ears. Enough to make all those years of wishing the other would have listened to him sting so sharply now that the truth came out from someone else's mouth and made it easier to believe for the other.
“Shizu-Chan?” Izaya’s voice was suddenly soft, lacking the cockiness that oozed off him on the daily. Shizuo blinked, then realized his face was wet. He was crying? Reaching up to his face he touched the area under one of his sunglasses lenses and felt another tear sliding free.
“Why am I…?” He asked, before Izaya reached up to cup his face.
“I'm sorry Shizu-Chan. I should have listened. What kind of informant was I that I didn't gather all the information before coming to a conclusion?” He said, and Shizuo’s breath hitched in his throat for a moment.
“I fucking told you, Flea. My phone died after calling my parents. I was going to let you know in the morning immediately so you wouldn't worry about me, but the new environment with the lack of my usual alarm threw me off. Me showing up with her was because we were literally only coming from the same place.” Shizuo said, voice wet with the tears still falling as he glared at Izaya as best he could.
“I know that now. I guess I may have known that then… but I was hurt, and I can admit, a bit insecure over the whole relationship being a semi-secret thing.” Izaya said, closing his eyes with a sigh before opening them again.
“I messed with your whole life as pay back for the hurt I felt. I let this whole rivalry grow because in some sick way I thought it was a way to at least have a part of your attention still, even if it was negative.” He admitted. Shizuo laughed at this, slightly broken and raw.
“I think I chased you and blamed you for everything for the same reasons….” He said softly as though he was confessing something to the universe instead of just the man next to him.
“Well, that just proves we're both messed up in the head, doesn't it?” Izaya said with a laugh, this one a bit more like his usual giggle of sadistic glee.
“I guess it does.” Shizuo agreed, but then he sighed and threw his head back to look at the ceiling. “What does this mean for us then, Flea?”
Immediately, Izaya was pulling his face down to stare him in the eyes again. “It means, we have years to make up for, and I, for one, am not about to let what we had before slip away again. Screw the “Ex” part of our relationship. You're mine Shizu-Chan. And I still remember how I used to make you fall apart.” Izaya said, each word getting quieter until he was whispering the last part into Shizuo’s ear in a way that sent a shiver down his back and forced a small whimper past his lips that he would deny forever.
“Prove it.” Shizuo said after he swallowed a couple of times, trying desperately to hide the growing heat in his cheeks and cover for the whimper. Izaya pulled back with a wicked grin on his face to look Shizuo in his eyes.
“I intend to. But now, we can find our new limits... together.”