Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shizuo wonders if it’s a fan of gore. His pillow is stained with a painting of his own face, or maybe just the parts that have been rearranged, the blood he never cleaned as evidence of a night well-spent. He flips the pillow over and gets out of bed. A limp he didn’t have yesterday means another five hundred thousand yen in his bank account. The fact that he can’t open his left eye all the way means someone else probably lost theirs. The way his nose bends out of place, full of tissue and dried blood, means someone else is dead. 

Still, the crow watches.

Shizuo pops open a bottle of ibuprofen and yesterday's coffee for breakfast. The minimalist gray and aesthetic white of his kitchen paint the scene for a life of running away and emotional avoidance. That’s goddamn dramatic. Shizuo chalks the thought up to the instability of early morning. Tom won’t call him today — he’s counting on it — so the twelve hours between when he woke up and when he will go to bed will be spent, in it’s entirety, running laps in his own mind. Depending on who you ask, that is an efficient use of your day off. Soul searching. And if you have no soul? What then?

Shizuo sips the stale, mud-like sludge at the bottom of his mug and — there’s the damn crow, outside the kitchen window. It sits above the sink, peering inside over the black depths of the garbage disposal, over the plastic sheen of the table, straight at Shizuo sitting there. 

It looks like someone he knows. That’s a funny thought, so funny indeed it pulls a laugh straight from the steel cage of his ribs. The laugh breaks off into a not-so-pleasant sequence of cough, followed by an exhale of breath that is more wheeze than anything. Shizuo probably needs to go to the hospital. Being the strongest only ever meant that nobody felt the need to hold anything back. 

Shizuo grips the mug tighter. He resists smashing it against the window. It’s the closest he could get to breaking Izaya’s face. 

Instead, he washes it under water so hot his skin turns pink. He can find solace in the little things, in the easy things. Knicking his knuckles on butter knives, picking the skin off his nailbeds, letting Izaya hold his breath in his mouth until they both went lightheaded. You tend to recede in those things, the comforts of your past, no matter how unclean they were. 

The bathroom shows him something unsightly. His reflection in the medicine cabinet isn’t one he’s ever owned. Shizuo doesn’t look like the boy his mother gave birth to; the man staring back at him is a monster — a cancerous beast of a thing, the gory curve of his broken nose, the swell of his black eye. 

He made the mistake of falling asleep before working on his injuries. His face is swollen, blown up like a bloody, red-black balloon. Outside the bathroom window the crow peck-peck’s the glass. Shizuo heaves a breath through his nose. You should see the other guy. 

Except you can’t. You never can. Shizuo takes no prisoners. 

Shizuo cleans his face and his skin screams in protest. Maybe he’d thought it impossible at one time to feel any more pain than on that first day. But that’s always before day two. Somehow it’s always worse. Worse still, if he doesn’t have the time to visit Shinra. Worse still if he falls asleep on painkillers and regret. 

That’s two for two, this time. 

The crow crams it’s needle-point beak against the glass like it means to siphon it’s way inside. Peck peck. It follows him wherever he goes. It doesn’t shut up. Maybe in another universe, you’ll come back as a rat. 

Better clean your gutters, Shizu-chan, ‘cause it doesn’t matter what universe you choose. I’ll be here. 

Shizuo had almost called him the black plague back then. But he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. 

A butterfly bandage keeps his face together but groceries aren’t an option. Shizuo’s pretty sure his left ankle is two times the size it usually is. That could prove to be a problem. Last night, he’d chased the guy fifteen blocks before cornering him in an alley. He didn’t see the crowbar behind his back until it was all he could see.

Being the strongest meant he couldn’t let his guard down for even a second. 

Well he let his guard down. 

The crow snaps it’s mouth closed. Like it was talking to him. 

You don’t let anyone inside and one day you’re gonna burst. Call me up when you do — I’ll want to see it. 

Yeah right. 

Shizuo wouldn’t call him if it was the end of the world. Maybe that’s also dramatic. But he had three contacts in his phone and only one of them was his mother. That’s two more than he had in high school. You take your wins where you can.

Shizuo cleans blood off of the sink with a cotton pad and isopropyl alcohol. Here’s the unglamorous side of being the bodyguard of a pocket shaker; nobody wanted to lose their money. Even if their money wasn’t theirs anymore. 

I don’t know how you’re still pretty with that rearranged face, Shizu-chan. 

Izaya isn’t exactly the trademark for pillow talk. 

They say beauty is on the inside, bastard. Not that you’d know.

Their love is for closed doors. If you can even call it that. Love. Maybe it was more like hunger. Shizuo was born hungry; born animal with an appetite and the incisors to match. Izaya isn’t so unlike him in that way. Their love is something consuming, while unquenching, like a jug of saltwater in the desert.

Shizuo strips the bed. He gets halfway to the washers before dumping them in the weekend's trash. It looks like he’s trying to get away with a last minute murder. But any regular Joe walking down the street will take one look at his face and know the reality of his situation. Being the strongest only ever meant never being able to hide. 

He refits the bed with sheets from the side closet. They smell like grandma’s sock drawer. Good thing he’s the only one sleeping in it. Blood rushes to his face when he leans over to tuck the sheet under the mattress. At least his mother would be proud that he knows how to make a bed. 

Izaya’s sheets were always pooling by the edge, or thrown on the floor, a dirty man in a rich house. He was all chipped china; picking at his teeth with black cards, sitting all alone in a ballroom. Excess for the sake of excess. 

Shizuo’s feet always hung off the edge. And Izaya was a blanket hog besides. 

I don’t know why I even stay here.

Haven’t you heard? You’re alone, Shizu-chan. 

Maybe. Or maybe you’re just an easy target.

Izaya’s skin was white against black satin. He stretched like a cat under Shizuo’s attention, preening soft. Gonna kill me in my sleep? Go on and give it a try. I dare you. 

The crow’s eye is red in the afternoon sun. It’s daring Shizuo to let it inside. To be unarmed and hospitable. Pathetic. What if you’d never been taught how to love? 

It goes like this: you couldn’t depetal the rose with enough care, or maybe you were born with heavy hands. But you laid a beautiful thing to waste so how could you, as a thing, be beautiful? You can’t. So you killed the land and dried up the oceans and — and now what? Now that you’ve destroyed it all. Are you finally free of all things? Or is this cage you live in made by your own design?

Shizuo snorts, flips the crow the bird. Fuckin’ dramatic. 

It was still early. And Sunday. Bad cocktail. 

You’re the most dramatic person I know. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Izaya would think that. He’s never taken a single thing seriously in his entire life. He’s been given that mercy. Carelessness. Belligerent apathy. 

You should give it a try. 

Is it dramatic to say I’d rather die?

Izaya’s laugh was as sardonic as cyanide. Classic. 

Shizuo opens the window. He doesn’t know why he does it — pushes his face all close to let the crow get an eyeful. This is what you wanna see, huh? Take a good fucking look. 

The bird flies away. And now Shizuo’s sitting there with his pulp-purple face out the window. His next door neighbour is yelling at him about catching a cold. As soon as she catches the condition of his face she isn’t as worried anymore. 

Shizuo closes the window. Izaya never fails to put him on edge. Even when the bastard wasn’t even present. It’s that damn crow; the sharp beak, the knowing gaze. It threatens to see right through the facade. Overthrow the wall that’s comforted him all his life. 

It’s called honest violence. 

A beat of silence. Ain’t nothin’ honest about it. 

It takes strength to allow yourself release. 

Shizuo held his nose high. The strongest. 

Doesn’t that just mean the most alone? 

Izaya’s hand was cold beneath his. If Shizuo didn’t know any better, he’d say Izaya was a man easy to smother. Maybe he seemed frail or in need of protection. All of his strength was held up in the eyes. But Shizuo doesn’t believe any of that because he does know better. 

Izaya isn’t weak in any definitions of the word. 

Shizuo held his hand and figured he could at least pretend. 

Yes, he was alone. But you’re here with me aren’t you? So what does that make you?

The crow bats it’s wings. Up-down, down-up, in a flurry of black. When did you get back here? 

Doesn’t matter what universe —

Yeah. You said that already. 

A knock on his door. For a half-second, Shizuo thinks it’s the crow. But that would be absurd. When he looks to the sill, though, the crow is gone. Go figure. 

The hallway light is yellow as a toilet bowl. Izaya smirks. “You look like shit.”

“You should see the other guy.” Shizuo doesn’t invite him in but he steps aside. Izaya’s is awarded his back and the weight of his own decision. 

The door shuts behind him. “I can’t, can I?”

Shizuo doesn’t turn around. “No. No you can’t.”

Outside, the bird croons. But when he looks to scare it away, the goddamn bird nowhere to be seen. 

“You gonna ask me what I’m doing here?”

Shizuo lifts a brow, “Do I want to know?” You’ve been watching me. You’re the only one that watches me.

Izaya skips around his words, a Houdini, master of escape. He starts shit just to show how he can get out of it. “Nope,” Popping the ‘p’ like bubblegum. 

Shizuo’s presence makes people tuck their chin in disgust. Tom, Kasuka, the entire lot of them. But not Izaya. Maybe Shizuo’s met his match; a man with hands as soiled as his own. Someone that surpasses him in the game of big bad wolf. Sure, Shizuo’s blown some houses down. But Izaya plants bombs during bedtime stories. “Tell me anyway.”

He dumps his coat on Shizuo’s couch. Opens the window to let in air and ambiance, mouth curved into a caustic grin. “You haven’t seen a bird around, have you?”

“You cursin’ me, huh bastard?” 

“Misfortune, ill-will, rebirth,” Izaya counts his fingers lazily, draping himself over the bed. His words stick Shizuo in the doorframe. “Praying for it all, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo grimaces. Izaya didn’t have his white-coat on but he sure as hell was talking like a shrink. “This is it for us. Ain’t no ‘rebirth’. Just this life.”

“That’s awfully wise.”

“I have layers.”

Izaya laughs. It’s a chortle — ripped so unnaturally from his chest. “Now that is something I don’t believe.”

Shizuo crosses the threshold. “Excuse the bed,” He motions toward the musty sheets. “Didn’t expect company.”

“Courteous,” 

A shrug. “I have my layers.”

Outside, the crow watches. 

“Sure,” Izaya says, laying back. “Well, alright then.”