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"You want to hear something?"

The words were followed by a crash and a hole through an innocent house's sidewall. Truly amused, Izaya laughed at the wall for a moment, before he realized that he should probably keep on running. He dodged the huge vase, which then also hit the wall just next to the hole, and flew away from the scene right around the next corner.

"No!"

Came the immediate answer, or yell, and, right after it, another vase. Izaya wondered if Shizuo still had more flowerpots up his sleeve. Didn't he find anything more gore to throw? The question was quite rhetorical. He had known the answer it didn't really need before he had asked the question in his head, even before a bright pink bike flew over his head. It wasn't as if Shizuo specially chose what he was going to throw: he just threw everything he got the handle of. Izaya halted, turned around and granted Shizuo with what he thought was an extremely charming smile. The bike crashed into the cement behind him.

"I'm going to tell you anyway!" he spread his arms open as if he was planning to give his good old friend a big hug, "I was thinking I'd go to heaven!"

Well, if Shizuo hadn't been pissed off before, he sure was now.

"Fat chance, you asshole!"

This time, he definitely yelled into the air and accelerated towards the smaller man, deciding to kick his ass in the traditional way. As in, beat him to mush with bare hands. Izaya's eyes widened and, for the moment, he seemed frozen in place. One could have thought he was scared, unless his grin hadn't been widening along with his eyes. Very gracefully he slipped past the other's fists and they started dancing around each other. It ended when Izaya jumped upon a trash can.

"No, no! Really! And you know what's even more fun? I was thinking about taking you with me!" Shizuo threw another smaller trash can at him, but he missed, to no one's surprise, "That's no way of treating someone who is going to take you to heaven. Or, to Valhalla, but I figured you would get it better if I said heaven."

Izaya shook his head and made disapproving noises at him. All the while shooting an annoyed glare at the other, Shizuo began flexing his fists in a threatening manner. Izaya remained unfazed. Shizuo felt like he should calm down enough to be able to tell that little person that he was being an idiot. Again. As if that was something new. He was just too annoyed. He shouldn't have to deal with this. Actually, no one should have to deal with this, so he was doing that man a favor that Izaya would be disturbing if he wasn't already disturbing Shizuo. That man owed him a lot.

"Look, I don't know if you're being serious with this or not, but trust me, if you were to go to heaven, I'd rather go to hell than to go there with you," Izaya pressed his hands over his chest, presumably where he thought his heart would be if he ever even had one, and failed to look sad, "I hate you! And I've been hearing some talk that you might hate me too, so get over whatever middle-age-crisis you're going through and fight me like a man."

The man he was addressing began laughing so hard, he almost fell off from the trash can. The laugh was short lasted and Izaya, Shizuo decided, didn't really have a reason for it at all. The dumb, the insane or the people who were both liked to laugh at nothing at random times and he knew this from experience.

"Haa, if I had known that I'd get so many words out of you just by inviting you to heaven, I would have done it ages ago! But hey, look, I've also been thinking about this "I-hate-you-to-death" -thing of ours and I've come to the conclusion that what if… dumdumdum… We fell in love!"

Izaya winked. Shizuo blinked. The blonde had been planning to say that Izaya really should watch out for thinking so much, since he might overwork his brain, if he ever had got that either, but then he decided against talking at all. After all, actions spoke louder than words. He roared and Izaya laughed and all Shizuo could see was red. He grabbed the trash can Izaya was standing on and threw it high in the air. Whether by an accident or not, Shizuo couldn't tell, but it ended up irritatingly well for Izaya. He had rode the trash can in the air for a good ten meters, before he unfortunately fell off and dropped neatly upon a storage depot of some kind. Izaya looked dazed for a moment, before he laughed, again, for crying out loud.

"See, we're quite passionate about each other already!"

Shizuo growled and Izaya had to dodge a full out rain of trash cans. Luckily, the blonde was so angry he wasn't aiming as well anymore. Not to say that he was aiming badly, Izaya thought, as one of the smaller ones grazed his arm and made him feel an unnatural amount of pain, considering the size of the thing. He rubbed his arm and frowned.

"I'm serious! I really could start loving you! You know why I love all human beings? Hmm? Because I own them!"

For a while now, Shizuo had been busy searching for heavier things to throw and so appeared to be not paying attention, but it didn't seem to stop Izaya from talking anyway. The little man's voice suddenly rose with his last sentence and caught Shizuo's eye. Or perhaps "his ear" would be the more appropriate term. He was half expecting Izaya to start laughing like the bloody maniac he was. The rest of the speech seemed to be getting ridiculous, so he just continued his search. Something long would be good…

"I own them because they are my puppets. I can manipulate them. Them all! This whole city is mine because I can control every single inch of it! … Except you. That's why I don't like you. You can't be manipulated, because your reaction to everything is "aaaagh, I'm gonna kill youuu…""

At this point, Izaya decided it was a good idea to illustrate his statement by failing his arms widely around in the air, in rather wiggly patterns. While Shizuo… Was searching for something long with what he could reach the other without having to throw the weapon away immediately… Like a traffic sign or a… Hmm… Shizuo roughly lifted the lamppost off from the ground and, with a positively evil glint in his eyes he started heading towards his prey.

"That's what you do. The only thing I can get you to do is to attack me and that doesn't count, because you'd do it even without my guidance. And that's why I can't own you. Stupid thing… But! I figured out another way I could own you!"

At that point, Shizuo aimed the lamppost at his sworn enemy's, now not just trying to hit him but also on him, head. Izaya had literally seen the assault coming from meters away and it was boringly easy for him to move away from the harm's way. But it wasn't like Shizuo had counted his all on that one strike. No, no, lampposts were quite practical for the reason that they were reusable. The actual lamp part broke to smithereens though, but that wasn't important. Shizuo prepared to lift it up and swing again, until Izaya laid his hands on top of the pole and kept it there. For a second, Shizuo wondered if Izaya wanted to wrestle him for it. But he couldn't be that stupid, could he?

"Do you know why I want you to come to heaven with me? Because", it was disturbing how sickly sweet his voice now was, "I was thinking about things that I'd want to have there. And nothing came to mind, except the one thing that I don't have. I'll have tons of humans to play with there, but not you. So I figured, I have to catch you quickly before we're separated for good. Sounds romantic, doesn't it?"

Well, it sounded romantic to Izaya, but to Shizuo it sounded incredible selfish. Of course the little spoiled bastard would want to have everything he couldn't own. Then it occurred to him that it was a tad harder to swing a post at its target if there was no space to actually swing. Well damn, Izaya actually had had a point with holding it down. Not that it especially stopped Shizuo from swinging it at no target. Not at all actually. In a swift movement, he had the lamppost pointed towards the sky and Izaya balancing on his hands at the other end. What, was he fighting against a monkey now? Izaya smiled at Shizuo, who now began trying to shake him off the pole.

"Shizu-chan…" Izaya whined joyously, "Be mine. Love me and I swear…"

Even more swiftly than Shizuo had lifted the pole, Izaya moved over to sit on top the pole and then slid down along the pole's side, as if down an actual slide, and fell safely into Shizuo's arms. He immediately snaked his arms around the other's neck and smoothly pulled himself closer to the man so their faces became an inch apart at most. Eyes half-lid and head slightly tilted, he continued with a voice very soft and low.

"I will love you more than anything I've ever owned before."

For the second time during their encounter, Shizuo decided that real actions were needed instead of just simple words. Izaya just and just managed to slip away before the post connected with his head. The lamppost sunk into the cement and effectively created a small wall between them. Izaya peeked over its side at Shizuo. Coming to the conclusion that the other wasn't overly happy about all this,
he chose to end it here for today.

"I take that as a maybe! Think about it good, you might see what you're missing. Till next time!"

He then started climbing the ladders up to the roof. Shizuo of course followed, but, by the time he had managed to get all the way up, Izaya had already vanished into thin air.

-

About every single person in the world had moments where they had to wait a short while for someone or something. Some waited thirty seconds for the lift to reach their floor. Some waited a quarter of an hour to meet their friend. Some waited longer. Most just patiently waited for the moment to pass by. Unfortunately for Shizuo, Izaya had decided to use each and every millisecond of these moments to bother him. More specifically, his phone.

He didn't know where the other had got his phone number. He didn't really even want to know. But he always called or sent a text message or a picture from a hidden number and Shizuo always had to answer them or look at them, because Tom also used a hidden number and Shizuo would probably lose his job if he stopped answering his boss's calls. And he definitely wasn't going to let Izaya get him fired from this job too. He wondered if Izaya knew this. And if he knew that Shizuo read his messages. He also wondered if Izaya knew his working hours too, because the messages seemed to lessen when he was with Tom.

The main purpose of it all was apparently to charm Shizuo. Which, currently, wasn't working very well. If his phone calls started with anything like "how has your day been, honey?" or "what are you wearing right now?", Shizuo would immediately hang up. If they started with "do you love me yet?" or "about earlier today, I'm a little hurt over the fact that you tried to run over the love of your life", Shizuo would tell him he's an asshole and then hang up. If Izaya started talking about his own day or something completely unrelated to anything, like how rainbows really only had three colors, red, yellow and blue, and the four other colors were just those three colors switching to each other, Shizuo would listen and then hang up.

It was ridiculous. He couldn't even fight him properly anymore, because instead of trying to get his attacks backfire on him somehow, Izaya now mostly tried to get close enough to him so he could plant a kiss on his neck or either one of his cheeks. Nowadays, Shizuo felt like he should definitely be the one running, not the one chasing. But he couldn't, because he was so damn annoyed by the other. The only thing he truly wanted to do when he saw him was to pull his head off.

The most annoying thing was though that Shinra knew. Celty knew also, of course, but she wasn't nearly as irritating about it. Oh, Shinra had so much fun with it. His favorite hobby was to read the text messages Izaya sent to Shizuo out loud. Shizuo always deleted the messages as much as he could, but Izaya sent them a lot. And Shinra was extremely sneaky with what came to stealing his cell phone, almost to the point where Shizuo considered just avoiding him completely. But he wasn't going to let Izaya ruin his relations with the two, so that wasn't really an option.

"Never would have imagined our Izaya would develop a crush on you!"

Was always Shinra's conclusive comment, but Shizuo wouldn't have put it like that. It was nothing more than Izaya enjoying the chase of unreachable things. When he got them, he threw them away. Shizuo considered just accepting Izaya. Then the other could be satisfied and finally leave him alone. But he didn't want to make Izaya satisfied. Which sounded incredibly kinky even inside his own head. He blamed Izaya and his phone calls and his text messages and his fucking pictures.

"Maybe you should just talk to him seriously?"

Celty had said, or rather, texted and Shizuo figured he might have to. This thing was getting on his nerves worse than when Izaya had framed him for all those crimes. Which just all the more made him want to wail "why me!" high into the sky, if he had been the wailing type. Would Izaya have forgotten his sudden fixation if Shizuo had just been smart enough to stay home that dreadful day, when he had ended up having Izaya at the end of a stick demanding declarations of love out of him? Well. That came out even dirtier. This had got to stop. He definitely needed to talk to Izaya.

-

It wasn't hard to find Izaya. It never had been. Chaos always followed the smaller man. Shizuo didn't like to think that he had just saved him from what could have been a potential gang rape. Because it's not like the gang would have succeeded anyhow, Shizuo just fastened the process of them getting their ass kicked so he could talk with Izaya sooner. Then on the other hand, Izaya had now been going on for ten minutes straight about how gallant it was of his knight, which referred to Shizuo, to come to save his, the knight's, damsel in distress, which was supposed to be Izaya. It was an awfully long time for only one subject.

"We need to talk", and before Izaya managed to say something cheeky about that, "I want you to know that it's never going to happen between us. Okay?"

It was hard for him to try to keep his temper in place. Izaya crossed his arms and pouted. At least he was silent for a few seconds. Just tiny seconds without his ear piercing voice made wonders for Shizuo's inner peace.

"You haven't even considered it."

It was midday and they were in this rather nice park, actually. Shizuo was sitting on bench and Izaya stood before him, looking over his shoulder at a fountain some meters away. It wasn't like Izaya was going to accept a "no" before Shizuo proved to him that he had at least considered the option. People were stupid sometimes, making decisions just because they "felt like right" without even realizing the possibility that maybe their initiative was wrong. Of course, maybe Shizuo had a little more evidence than just an initiative, but that was just a small detail.

"Yes. I have."

Okay he hadn't. But he was fairly certain that he could still come up with millions of reasons why it wouldn't work out. He didn't need to go through some kind of long thought process to know them. Considering might have helped unless he didn't have the relationship between him and Izaya clearly defined inside his head. He could list those reasons and they worked as well for answers to why he couldn't love the other man.

"First: I hate you. I have hated you ever since I met you. Since then, you have tried to torture me, handicap me and kill me, several times all. You have succeeded to get me wounded, fired from my job and dancing on the brim of insanity. I think I've returned the favor of hitting you with about a billion of vending machines. There is no way we can just forget all this and move onto happily loving each other."

He thought he did pretty well. How can anyone deny how dysfunctional a relationship like that would be? Well, he was actually waiting for Izaya to do that. The guy was living in a world of his own, where unicorn flew in the sky along with pink ducks, screaming in agony as Izaya brought them down with a shotgun. But there was still no way he could convince Shizuo to think like that too.

"Have you ever heard about "lovers' quarrels"?

That was how he explained what they did? "Lovers' quarrels"?

"Well there's an understatement."

It took most of Shizuo's willpower to not just get up and snap the man's neck in half. He had been expecting a little bit better explanation than that. He wasn't expecting a good one and definitely not a sensible one, but this was just too stupid. Izaya shook his head and waved his right hand dismissively.

"That's not what I meant. What I mean is, how are you ever going to find yourself a partner who you're not going to lose your temper with?" Izaya snorted and rolled his eyes, "You lose your temper with everyone and I really do mean everyone. Partners are closer than anyone and therefore fight even more than just friends. But who is going to survive your temper explosions, huh? Who but me? Or are you going to live your life in celibacy? Or with Simon? Quite honestly, right now, I'm your best decision."

Quite honestly, Shizuo would rather fall in love with Simon than Izaya. Well okay, no, that would never happen, but it still beat having to stand Izaya all the time. But that was a stupid logic anyway. It wasn't like it was impossible for him to find a strong woman who could take care for herself. Or a woman who had a calming effect on him. That was even more likely. He had never been worried about not finding anyone. But Izaya would just deny him on that and he didn't want to lose his nerves just yet, which he felt was becoming very close now. So he moved on to the next problem.

"I don't trust you", Izaya raised a single brow incredulously, as if he didn't believe him, "I don't even trust you right now with this all. I think you're joking. And trust is the foundation of all functional relationships, or so I've heard."

He gritted his teeth together during his last few words because he had never imagined he would have to tell this to Izaya and the fact that he still had to, irritated him to no end. Izaya sighed exasperatedly and shook his head again. He seemed to disagree with everything today. Don't hit him, don't hit him yet.

"Why does it even need to be "functional"? Oh well, it's not my fault if you are troubled. I myself see no troubles with coming to trust you."

Shizuo dug his fingernails into his palms. He shouldn't even try to think of a comeback to that one, he would just lose it and try to kill the other before they got this settled. Izaya remained oblivious to the other's growing anger, or at least he seemed like it. He was watching at the fountain again and for some reason, smiling. Shizuo didn't look, but he guessed that there were some kids fighting or a couple breaking up. Why else would Izaya ever smile if no one else was frowning? Okay, last attempt. Izaya turned to look at him just in time with his next words.

"I'm not gay?"

Izaya laughed at that.

"Oh please. Trust me, it's sexual frustration, that's why you want to kill me all the time."

And that was the end of their discussion. Shizuo had gotten up and tried to crush him with the bench he had been sitting on. Izaya had danced away, screaming "sexual frustration", and Shizuo had sprinted after him and then there was just an old story to be told. Later on that night, Shizuo received a "Nighty night, Shizu-chan~<3 have lots of "nice" dreams about me " as a text message into his cell and he realized that he still hadn't gotten past his problem. Damn. He needed to talk with Izaya again.

-

The problem was that Izaya didn't want to talk to him. At least not about what Shizuo wanted to talk about.

"No, you'll just explode again and I don't really want to waste my time on that today."

It had never stopped him before from annoying the hell out of Shizuo. Was he supposed to be busy or something? Then he said that they could, however, go on a date if that was what Shizuo really wanted, but was too afraid to ask, on the one condition that Shizuo wouldn't try to talk him out of his fixation, which Izaya called his "destiny", or he'd leave immediately. It was also then that Shizuo realized that he wasn't busy. He was definitely just trying to irritate him as much as possible. He tried to promise Izaya that he wouldn't "explode", but he didn't even believe it himself, so how could he make Izaya believe it? But Shizuo was desperate. He really needed to end this all.

"What if I… take some tranquilizers? Would you agree to talk to me then?"

Such an odd idea, but it was all Shizuo could think of. Izaya also refused to talk about it through phone, because he apparently suspected that Shizuo would just yell at him through the whole discussion. The guy just wanted to make everything difficult. He was probably allergic to easy. Because like Shizuo had already said, usually Izaya wanted him to lose his temper, not avoid it. But, it was probably true that the conversation would never lead anywhere if Shizuo blew up every time they discussed and that was a big problem for Shizuo too. Sometimes, it was really annoying to have such temper. Izaya sounded somewhat impressed on the other side of the line.

"You really want to discuss this that badly? And you said you didn't trust me! It will be awfully easy for me to kill you if you do that, you know? Will you even stay in your right mind? Or will you become all stoned?"

Shizuo didn't really trust him, but he was hoping that Izaya wanted to achieve his current goal more than he wanted Shizuo dead. If he wanted Shizuo to love him, it would require not killing him. He assured Izaya that he wouldn't get high. He wasn't sure about that either, but he was willing to try anything that had the potential to get Izaya to stop trying to hit on him. Surprisingly, Izaya agreed. Shizuo had honestly thought that he had just been making excuses all along so he would have to have the discussion with him. Izaya did demand that he saw him taking the pills and that Shinra would be there also to assure him that Shizuo was taking the right ones. Shizuo accepted his terms and it was settled. They would be meeting that evening.

-

Okay shit. This was definitely not supposed to happen. How could it even be possible? He quickly dialed a number with his cell phone. Thankfully for Shizuo's nerves, it only rang for a few times before there was an answer.

"Shinra?"

Not thankfully for Shizuo's nerves, hearing that voice did pop up more than a few veins in his head. He wanted to scream, but of course he couldn't. So instead he just hissed back into the phone.

"What the fuck did you make me take?"

There was some shuffling at the other end. Shinra was probably still in bed.

"What do you mean?"

If Shinra had been there with him, he would have completely ignored their years of companionship and ripped his arm off. Like he didn't know. That son of a bitch.

"I mean, why the hell did I end up almost fucking Izaya through my mattress?" a pause, "More than once."

Shizuo glanced at the calmly sleeping figure beside him. The other was thoroughly covered with blankets and he was clutching to them like a kid clutched to his teddy bear while sleeping. Shizuo frowned as he realized that Izaya must have been trying to fill the literal void that Shizuo had left behind when he had sat up to call Shinra. Why was he calling Shinra again? Oh yeah. Because it was his fault and his fucking hormone pills or whatever's fault. He should fix this somehow or be prepared to get his ass kicked.

"What? I mean… Really? You really did?"

His question seemed to ignite the illegal doctor's interest though. Well that was nice. Unfortunately, he still wasn't exactly helping.

"Look, I didn't call to ask you for your opinion on it!"

Izaya furrowed his brows, but he didn't wake up. Shizuo made a mental note not to lose his temper or he would definitely wake up the smaller man. He wasn't ready for him to wake up yet.

"No, no, no! You got me wrong! It really is amazing that you could do it…"

Was Shinra doubting his manhood now? Oh, this "not-losing-your-temper" –thing was going to get a tad more difficult. The other basically begged for his hand to be separated from the rest of his body.

"It's just that, the pills I gave you should have made you as jelly as… well a jellyfish. You must really, really and I mean REALLY want Izaya to be able to do it even once. But to make lo-…"

At that point, Shizuo decided to hang up. Call it fucking, screwing, banging or whatever, but it wasn't making love. It wasn't. It wasn't, no matter how many times Izaya had told Shizuo he loved him that night. It didn't matter that he remembered a point where he had repeated it over and over again and eventually come to the conclusion that Shizuo could be the one to own him. It didn't matter how beautiful that had sounded to him at the time, how beautiful anything the other had breathed out had sounded. No matter that he had actually told the other he was beautiful, because he truly had been, lying under him, moaning his name, the prettiest one of all the things Izaya had said, and clinging to him as if for his dear life.

It didn't matter that, at end of their final act of the night, Shizuo had broken his personal promise of never letting the dark haired man hear those three specific words pass through his lips while being dedicated to him. None of it mattered. Or he didn't want it to matter, but it was the same. The point was, it shouldn't have mattered. He wanted to break out of all this. He didn't want this all on him. He should have been given the possibility to turn it down. But he wasn't and now it was too late. It was all Izaya's fault really. The other didn't give up until he got what he wanted. Shizuo had been doomed from the very start.

It wasn't just the lack of trust that bothered him. It did, but it wasn't all there was to it. There had been a reason Shizuo had hated Izaya the moment he had seen him. It wasn't just a random decision, there was an actual motive behind it. The moment he saw Izaya, he had known that the other had a dark side to him. No, scratch that. He had known, he had seen it with his own two eyes that the other had no heart and that his soul was tainted almost to the point of being purely evil.

This observation was proven to be true later on. Izaya wanted to see others suffer. He wanted to be the one to make them suffer and he enjoyed it when he succeeded to. Shizuo had witnessed it in first hand. All Izaya's ideals and goals went against all that Shizuo voted for. His temper put aside, Shizuo was actually a really nice guy when you got to know him. But Izaya… His plan to get to heaven had probably been to first kill someone potentially good, wait for an angel to come get him or her to heaven, cut the angel's wings off, duck tape them to his own back and fly to heaven himself. It sounded very Izaya. Ridiculous and evil.

It was Shizuo's job to get rid of Izaya, because he knew all this and he had the power to get rid of him. It was for the greater good. But it wasn't like rationality was going to make him fall out of love. No, it was a lot easier to drop in than to make his way out. Why had he even fallen for the other? Didn't that make no sense at all, what on earth could Izaya have that had made him fall for him? Nobody falls without a reason and that was just a fact. Even Seiji had fallen for Celty's head because he had thought that it was beautiful. Shizuo then, well he liked to think that he fell for Izaya's supposed "love" towards him.

Of course he wasn't sure if Izaya couldn't even feel real love, but that wasn't the point. What made him fall were small things. The fact that, lately, Izaya had been stubbornly and continuously asking him how his days had gone by, even though Shizuo hadn't answered one single time. Maybe that was why he kept asking, because Shizuo never answered. But after babbling so much about his own days, Shizuo had gotten the impression that he really, truly had wanted to hear the answer to the question. It was the fact that when Izaya had had an absolutely boring moment, he had doodled two chibies on a napkin, him and Shizuo apparently, holding hands and emitting hearts over their heads, taken a picture of it and sent it to Shizuo.

The fact that when Izaya had been talking about rainbows, he talked about the millions of shades and radiances that were created by the three simplest little colors. Yes, Shizuo had fallen for the one small, good, innocent part in him, but the same way that his darkness was deeper than anyone else's, Izaya's light was more brilliant than of anyone he had ever met before. Shizuo knew that it was truly a tiny part and it didn't, it hadn't and it wouldn't stop him from doing evil. But it was a part of him anyway.

Shizuo wished he could just keep the innocent him in his arms forever, away from doing harm, but he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could just stop him from doing all that he did. He wasn't sure if he could even keep Izaya in his arms for the littlest moment. At that, he felt like hitting himself. He had promised himself that he wouldn't tell the other how he felt about him because, if he did, Izaya would achieve his goal. There would no longer be anything for him to go after here. He would leave. Shizuo had tried to keep his feelings to himself, tried to force the other to stay, but he had failed miserably in his plan.

How could he even have fallen in love so fast? Some people said it took years to achieve that, yet, he had fallen during one single night. Granted, he had probably been going towards that direction before already, but still. Well, love was a rather abstract term. It was a word like intelligence, madness and evil were, things that everyone had slightly different definitions of, levels of how high or low you needed to be to get the title. If Shizuo was ever going to feel something more than he felt right now, he would just call it deeper or stronger love. That was just it, end of discussion.

Izaya groaned and began shuffling. Shizuo turned to look at him, but the other's eyes were still closed. Izaya wiggled his way to Shizuo's side. Once he had reached his goal, the blanket suddenly opened and a hand came out to pull Shizuo inside the cocoon Izaya had created. Now that he had gotten his teddy bear back into his hold, Izaya proceeded to make odd, although rather satisfied noises, smacking and something close to "yumyumyum". It was quiet for a moment. Then a strict order.

"Call Tom later and tell him you're sick and can't come to work. Or else I'll get you fired."

Shizuo smiled. He felt somewhat special because Izaya didn't even try to manipulate him, even though Shizuo's every reaction to Izaya's every action no longer was violence. Threatening and manipulating were two completely different things and although Izaya probably had been serious about it, Shizuo found it somewhat cute. Okay, let's do it this way. Celty could come and clean things up if Izaya tried to destroy the world. Shizuo would just follow the little man around and try to minimize the damage, all the while trying to save his soul with the invincible power of love. Right.

But he was being serious with the basic idea. Because now, surprisingly, it seemed like Izaya actually knew what he wanted. He had reached his goal, but he wasn't leaving the prize behind. Or rather, he wanted to be the prize the blonde carried around. Shizuo decided that they could manage as long as there was that brilliant, beautiful part in Izaya that loved him enough to shine over the darkness in him and make him want to be loved in return. God damn it Shizuo was losing his mind. Luckily he wouldn't need it if he was going to live the rest of his life with Izaya. Not to mention Valhalla. Izaya yawned and moved straight from there to gently nibbling Shizuo's shoulder. He was smacking again.

"I will eat you…"

If he ever ended up going along with Izaya's plan to destroy the whole planet, he would tell anyone who ever dared to scold him for it, to spend just one morning with Izaya and try not to do the same for the little man. Except that Izaya was officially and fucking exclusively his and he would personally kill anyone who even tried that in a very torturous way, but that was beside the point. What the point was, Izaya was the strangest, but also the cutest thing ever in the morning. And he was all Shizuo's now.

;) (Wink) — Description
"You want to hear something?"

The words were followed by a crash and a hole through an innocent house's sidewall. Truly amused, Izaya laughed at the wall for a moment, before he realized that he should probably keep on running. He dodged the huge vase, which then also hit the wall just next to the hole, and flew away from the scene right around the next corner.

"No!"

Came the immediate answer, or yell, and, right after it, another vase. Izaya wondered if Shizuo still had more flowerpots up his sleeve. Didn't he find anything more gore to throw? The question was quite rhetorical. He had known the answer it didn't really need before he had asked the question in his head, even before a bright pink bike flew over his head. It wasn't as if Shizuo specially chose what he was going to throw: he just threw everything he got the handle of. Izaya halted, turned around and granted Shizuo with what he thought was an extremely charming smile. The bike crashed into the cement behind him.

"I'm going to tell you anyway!" he spread his arms open as if he was planning to give his good old friend a big hug, "I was thinking I'd go to heaven!"

Well, if Shizuo hadn't been pissed off before, he sure was now.

"Fat chance, you asshole!"

This time, he definitely yelled into the air and accelerated towards the smaller man, deciding to kick his ass in the traditional way. As in, beat him to mush with bare hands. Izaya's eyes widened and, for the moment, he seemed frozen in place. One could have thought he was scared, unless his grin hadn't been widening along with his eyes. Very gracefully he slipped past the other's fists and they started dancing around each other. It ended when Izaya jumped upon a trash can.

"No, no! Really! And you know what's even more fun? I was thinking about taking you with me!" Shizuo threw another smaller trash can at him, but he missed, to no one's surprise, "That's no way of treating someone who is going to take you to heaven. Or, to Valhalla, but I figured you would get it better if I said heaven."

Izaya shook his head and made disapproving noises at him. All the while shooting an annoyed glare at the other, Shizuo began flexing his fists in a threatening manner. Izaya remained unfazed. Shizuo felt like he should calm down enough to be able to tell that little person that he was being an idiot. Again. As if that was something new. He was just too annoyed. He shouldn't have to deal with this. Actually, no one should have to deal with this, so he was doing that man a favor that Izaya would be disturbing if he wasn't already disturbing Shizuo. That man owed him a lot.

"Look, I don't know if you're being serious with this or not, but trust me, if you were to go to heaven, I'd rather go to hell than to go there with you," Izaya pressed his hands over his chest, presumably where he thought his heart would be if he ever even had one, and failed to look sad, "I hate you! And I've been hearing some talk that you might hate me too, so get over whatever middle-age-crisis you're going through and fight me like a man."

The man he was addressing began laughing so hard, he almost fell off from the trash can. The laugh was short lasted and Izaya, Shizuo decided, didn't really have a reason for it at all. The dumb, the insane or the people who were both liked to laugh at nothing at random times and he knew this from experience.

"Haa, if I had known that I'd get so many words out of you just by inviting you to heaven, I would have done it ages ago! But hey, look, I've also been thinking about this "I-hate-you-to-death" -thing of ours and I've come to the conclusion that what if… dumdumdum… We fell in love!"

Izaya winked. Shizuo blinked. The blonde had been planning to say that Izaya really should watch out for thinking so much, since he might overwork his brain, if he ever had got that either, but then he decided against talking at all. After all, actions spoke louder than words. He roared and Izaya laughed and all Shizuo could see was red. He grabbed the trash can Izaya was standing on and threw it high in the air. Whether by an accident or not, Shizuo couldn't tell, but it ended up irritatingly well for Izaya. He had rode the trash can in the air for a good ten meters, before he unfortunately fell off and dropped neatly upon a storage depot of some kind. Izaya looked dazed for a moment, before he laughed, again, for crying out loud.

"See, we're quite passionate about each other already!"

Shizuo growled and Izaya had to dodge a full out rain of trash cans. Luckily, the blonde was so angry he wasn't aiming as well anymore. Not to say that he was aiming badly, Izaya thought, as one of the smaller ones grazed his arm and made him feel an unnatural amount of pain, considering the size of the thing. He rubbed his arm and frowned.

"I'm serious! I really could start loving you! You know why I love all human beings? Hmm? Because I own them!"

For a while now, Shizuo had been busy searching for heavier things to throw and so appeared to be not paying attention, but it didn't seem to stop Izaya from talking anyway. The little man's voice suddenly rose with his last sentence and caught Shizuo's eye. Or perhaps "his ear" would be the more appropriate term. He was half expecting Izaya to start laughing like the bloody maniac he was. The rest of the speech seemed to be getting ridiculous, so he just continued his search. Something long would be good…

"I own them because they are my puppets. I can manipulate them. Them all! This whole city is mine because I can control every single inch of it! … Except you. That's why I don't like you. You can't be manipulated, because your reaction to everything is "aaaagh, I'm gonna kill youuu…""

At this point, Izaya decided it was a good idea to illustrate his statement by failing his arms widely around in the air, in rather wiggly patterns. While Shizuo… Was searching for something long with what he could reach the other without having to throw the weapon away immediately… Like a traffic sign or a… Hmm… Shizuo roughly lifted the lamppost off from the ground and, with a positively evil glint in his eyes he started heading towards his prey.

"That's what you do. The only thing I can get you to do is to attack me and that doesn't count, because you'd do it even without my guidance. And that's why I can't own you. Stupid thing… But! I figured out another way I could own you!"

At that point, Shizuo aimed the lamppost at his sworn enemy's, now not just trying to hit him but also on him, head. Izaya had literally seen the assault coming from meters away and it was boringly easy for him to move away from the harm's way. But it wasn't like Shizuo had counted his all on that one strike. No, no, lampposts were quite practical for the reason that they were reusable. The actual lamp part broke to smithereens though, but that wasn't important. Shizuo prepared to lift it up and swing again, until Izaya laid his hands on top of the pole and kept it there. For a second, Shizuo wondered if Izaya wanted to wrestle him for it. But he couldn't be that stupid, could he?

"Do you know why I want you to come to heaven with me? Because", it was disturbing how sickly sweet his voice now was, "I was thinking about things that I'd want to have there. And nothing came to mind, except the one thing that I don't have. I'll have tons of humans to play with there, but not you. So I figured, I have to catch you quickly before we're separated for good. Sounds romantic, doesn't it?"

Well, it sounded romantic to Izaya, but to Shizuo it sounded incredible selfish. Of course the little spoiled bastard would want to have everything he couldn't own. Then it occurred to him that it was a tad harder to swing a post at its target if there was no space to actually swing. Well damn, Izaya actually had had a point with holding it down. Not that it especially stopped Shizuo from swinging it at no target. Not at all actually. In a swift movement, he had the lamppost pointed towards the sky and Izaya balancing on his hands at the other end. What, was he fighting against a monkey now? Izaya smiled at Shizuo, who now began trying to shake him off the pole.

"Shizu-chan…" Izaya whined joyously, "Be mine. Love me and I swear…"

Even more swiftly than Shizuo had lifted the pole, Izaya moved over to sit on top the pole and then slid down along the pole's side, as if down an actual slide, and fell safely into Shizuo's arms. He immediately snaked his arms around the other's neck and smoothly pulled himself closer to the man so their faces became an inch apart at most. Eyes half-lid and head slightly tilted, he continued with a voice very soft and low.

"I will love you more than anything I've ever owned before."

For the second time during their encounter, Shizuo decided that real actions were needed instead of just simple words. Izaya just and just managed to slip away before the post connected with his head. The lamppost sunk into the cement and effectively created a small wall between them. Izaya peeked over its side at Shizuo. Coming to the conclusion that the other wasn't overly happy about all this,
he chose to end it here for today.

"I take that as a maybe! Think about it good, you might see what you're missing. Till next time!"

He then started climbing the ladders up to the roof. Shizuo of course followed, but, by the time he had managed to get all the way up, Izaya had already vanished into thin air.

-

About every single person in the world had moments where they had to wait a short while for someone or something. Some waited thirty seconds for the lift to reach their floor. Some waited a quarter of an hour to meet their friend. Some waited longer. Most just patiently waited for the moment to pass by. Unfortunately for Shizuo, Izaya had decided to use each and every millisecond of these moments to bother him. More specifically, his phone.

He didn't know where the other had got his phone number. He didn't really even want to know. But he always called or sent a text message or a picture from a hidden number and Shizuo always had to answer them or look at them, because Tom also used a hidden number and Shizuo would probably lose his job if he stopped answering his boss's calls. And he definitely wasn't going to let Izaya get him fired from this job too. He wondered if Izaya knew this. And if he knew that Shizuo read his messages. He also wondered if Izaya knew his working hours too, because the messages seemed to lessen when he was with Tom.

The main purpose of it all was apparently to charm Shizuo. Which, currently, wasn't working very well. If his phone calls started with anything like "how has your day been, honey?" or "what are you wearing right now?", Shizuo would immediately hang up. If they started with "do you love me yet?" or "about earlier today, I'm a little hurt over the fact that you tried to run over the love of your life", Shizuo would tell him he's an asshole and then hang up. If Izaya started talking about his own day or something completely unrelated to anything, like how rainbows really only had three colors, red, yellow and blue, and the four other colors were just those three colors switching to each other, Shizuo would listen and then hang up.

It was ridiculous. He couldn't even fight him properly anymore, because instead of trying to get his attacks backfire on him somehow, Izaya now mostly tried to get close enough to him so he could plant a kiss on his neck or either one of his cheeks. Nowadays, Shizuo felt like he should definitely be the one running, not the one chasing. But he couldn't, because he was so damn annoyed by the other. The only thing he truly wanted to do when he saw him was to pull his head off.

The most annoying thing was though that Shinra knew. Celty knew also, of course, but she wasn't nearly as irritating about it. Oh, Shinra had so much fun with it. His favorite hobby was to read the text messages Izaya sent to Shizuo out loud. Shizuo always deleted the messages as much as he could, but Izaya sent them a lot. And Shinra was extremely sneaky with what came to stealing his cell phone, almost to the point where Shizuo considered just avoiding him completely. But he wasn't going to let Izaya ruin his relations with the two, so that wasn't really an option.

"Never would have imagined our Izaya would develop a crush on you!"

Was always Shinra's conclusive comment, but Shizuo wouldn't have put it like that. It was nothing more than Izaya enjoying the chase of unreachable things. When he got them, he threw them away. Shizuo considered just accepting Izaya. Then the other could be satisfied and finally leave him alone. But he didn't want to make Izaya satisfied. Which sounded incredibly kinky even inside his own head. He blamed Izaya and his phone calls and his text messages and his fucking pictures.

"Maybe you should just talk to him seriously?"

Celty had said, or rather, texted and Shizuo figured he might have to. This thing was getting on his nerves worse than when Izaya had framed him for all those crimes. Which just all the more made him want to wail "why me!" high into the sky, if he had been the wailing type. Would Izaya have forgotten his sudden fixation if Shizuo had just been smart enough to stay home that dreadful day, when he had ended up having Izaya at the end of a stick demanding declarations of love out of him? Well. That came out even dirtier. This had got to stop. He definitely needed to talk to Izaya.

-

It wasn't hard to find Izaya. It never had been. Chaos always followed the smaller man. Shizuo didn't like to think that he had just saved him from what could have been a potential gang rape. Because it's not like the gang would have succeeded anyhow, Shizuo just fastened the process of them getting their ass kicked so he could talk with Izaya sooner. Then on the other hand, Izaya had now been going on for ten minutes straight about how gallant it was of his knight, which referred to Shizuo, to come to save his, the knight's, damsel in distress, which was supposed to be Izaya. It was an awfully long time for only one subject.

"We need to talk", and before Izaya managed to say something cheeky about that, "I want you to know that it's never going to happen between us. Okay?"

It was hard for him to try to keep his temper in place. Izaya crossed his arms and pouted. At least he was silent for a few seconds. Just tiny seconds without his ear piercing voice made wonders for Shizuo's inner peace.

"You haven't even considered it."

It was midday and they were in this rather nice park, actually. Shizuo was sitting on bench and Izaya stood before him, looking over his shoulder at a fountain some meters away. It wasn't like Izaya was going to accept a "no" before Shizuo proved to him that he had at least considered the option. People were stupid sometimes, making decisions just because they "felt like right" without even realizing the possibility that maybe their initiative was wrong. Of course, maybe Shizuo had a little more evidence than just an initiative, but that was just a small detail.

"Yes. I have."

Okay he hadn't. But he was fairly certain that he could still come up with millions of reasons why it wouldn't work out. He didn't need to go through some kind of long thought process to know them. Considering might have helped unless he didn't have the relationship between him and Izaya clearly defined inside his head. He could list those reasons and they worked as well for answers to why he couldn't love the other man.

"First: I hate you. I have hated you ever since I met you. Since then, you have tried to torture me, handicap me and kill me, several times all. You have succeeded to get me wounded, fired from my job and dancing on the brim of insanity. I think I've returned the favor of hitting you with about a billion of vending machines. There is no way we can just forget all this and move onto happily loving each other."

He thought he did pretty well. How can anyone deny how dysfunctional a relationship like that would be? Well, he was actually waiting for Izaya to do that. The guy was living in a world of his own, where unicorn flew in the sky along with pink ducks, screaming in agony as Izaya brought them down with a shotgun. But there was still no way he could convince Shizuo to think like that too.

"Have you ever heard about "lovers' quarrels"?

That was how he explained what they did? "Lovers' quarrels"?

"Well there's an understatement."

It took most of Shizuo's willpower to not just get up and snap the man's neck in half. He had been expecting a little bit better explanation than that. He wasn't expecting a good one and definitely not a sensible one, but this was just too stupid. Izaya shook his head and waved his right hand dismissively.

"That's not what I meant. What I mean is, how are you ever going to find yourself a partner who you're not going to lose your temper with?" Izaya snorted and rolled his eyes, "You lose your temper with everyone and I really do mean everyone. Partners are closer than anyone and therefore fight even more than just friends. But who is going to survive your temper explosions, huh? Who but me? Or are you going to live your life in celibacy? Or with Simon? Quite honestly, right now, I'm your best decision."

Quite honestly, Shizuo would rather fall in love with Simon than Izaya. Well okay, no, that would never happen, but it still beat having to stand Izaya all the time. But that was a stupid logic anyway. It wasn't like it was impossible for him to find a strong woman who could take care for herself. Or a woman who had a calming effect on him. That was even more likely. He had never been worried about not finding anyone. But Izaya would just deny him on that and he didn't want to lose his nerves just yet, which he felt was becoming very close now. So he moved on to the next problem.

"I don't trust you", Izaya raised a single brow incredulously, as if he didn't believe him, "I don't even trust you right now with this all. I think you're joking. And trust is the foundation of all functional relationships, or so I've heard."

He gritted his teeth together during his last few words because he had never imagined he would have to tell this to Izaya and the fact that he still had to, irritated him to no end. Izaya sighed exasperatedly and shook his head again. He seemed to disagree with everything today. Don't hit him, don't hit him yet.

"Why does it even need to be "functional"? Oh well, it's not my fault if you are troubled. I myself see no troubles with coming to trust you."

Shizuo dug his fingernails into his palms. He shouldn't even try to think of a comeback to that one, he would just lose it and try to kill the other before they got this settled. Izaya remained oblivious to the other's growing anger, or at least he seemed like it. He was watching at the fountain again and for some reason, smiling. Shizuo didn't look, but he guessed that there were some kids fighting or a couple breaking up. Why else would Izaya ever smile if no one else was frowning? Okay, last attempt. Izaya turned to look at him just in time with his next words.

"I'm not gay?"

Izaya laughed at that.

"Oh please. Trust me, it's sexual frustration, that's why you want to kill me all the time."

And that was the end of their discussion. Shizuo had gotten up and tried to crush him with the bench he had been sitting on. Izaya had danced away, screaming "sexual frustration", and Shizuo had sprinted after him and then there was just an old story to be told. Later on that night, Shizuo received a "Nighty night, Shizu-chan~<3 have lots of "nice" dreams about me " as a text message into his cell and he realized that he still hadn't gotten past his problem. Damn. He needed to talk with Izaya again.

-

The problem was that Izaya didn't want to talk to him. At least not about what Shizuo wanted to talk about.

"No, you'll just explode again and I don't really want to waste my time on that today."

It had never stopped him before from annoying the hell out of Shizuo. Was he supposed to be busy or something? Then he said that they could, however, go on a date if that was what Shizuo really wanted, but was too afraid to ask, on the one condition that Shizuo wouldn't try to talk him out of his fixation, which Izaya called his "destiny", or he'd leave immediately. It was also then that Shizuo realized that he wasn't busy. He was definitely just trying to irritate him as much as possible. He tried to promise Izaya that he wouldn't "explode", but he didn't even believe it himself, so how could he make Izaya believe it? But Shizuo was desperate. He really needed to end this all.

"What if I… take some tranquilizers? Would you agree to talk to me then?"

Such an odd idea, but it was all Shizuo could think of. Izaya also refused to talk about it through phone, because he apparently suspected that Shizuo would just yell at him through the whole discussion. The guy just wanted to make everything difficult. He was probably allergic to easy. Because like Shizuo had already said, usually Izaya wanted him to lose his temper, not avoid it. But, it was probably true that the conversation would never lead anywhere if Shizuo blew up every time they discussed and that was a big problem for Shizuo too. Sometimes, it was really annoying to have such temper. Izaya sounded somewhat impressed on the other side of the line.

"You really want to discuss this that badly? And you said you didn't trust me! It will be awfully easy for me to kill you if you do that, you know? Will you even stay in your right mind? Or will you become all stoned?"

Shizuo didn't really trust him, but he was hoping that Izaya wanted to achieve his current goal more than he wanted Shizuo dead. If he wanted Shizuo to love him, it would require not killing him. He assured Izaya that he wouldn't get high. He wasn't sure about that either, but he was willing to try anything that had the potential to get Izaya to stop trying to hit on him. Surprisingly, Izaya agreed. Shizuo had honestly thought that he had just been making excuses all along so he would have to have the discussion with him. Izaya did demand that he saw him taking the pills and that Shinra would be there also to assure him that Shizuo was taking the right ones. Shizuo accepted his terms and it was settled. They would be meeting that evening.

-

Okay shit. This was definitely not supposed to happen. How could it even be possible? He quickly dialed a number with his cell phone. Thankfully for Shizuo's nerves, it only rang for a few times before there was an answer.

"Shinra?"

Not thankfully for Shizuo's nerves, hearing that voice did pop up more than a few veins in his head. He wanted to scream, but of course he couldn't. So instead he just hissed back into the phone.

"What the fuck did you make me take?"

There was some shuffling at the other end. Shinra was probably still in bed.

"What do you mean?"

If Shinra had been there with him, he would have completely ignored their years of companionship and ripped his arm off. Like he didn't know. That son of a bitch.

"I mean, why the hell did I end up almost fucking Izaya through my mattress?" a pause, "More than once."

Shizuo glanced at the calmly sleeping figure beside him. The other was thoroughly covered with blankets and he was clutching to them like a kid clutched to his teddy bear while sleeping. Shizuo frowned as he realized that Izaya must have been trying to fill the literal void that Shizuo had left behind when he had sat up to call Shinra. Why was he calling Shinra again? Oh yeah. Because it was his fault and his fucking hormone pills or whatever's fault. He should fix this somehow or be prepared to get his ass kicked.

"What? I mean… Really? You really did?"

His question seemed to ignite the illegal doctor's interest though. Well that was nice. Unfortunately, he still wasn't exactly helping.

"Look, I didn't call to ask you for your opinion on it!"

Izaya furrowed his brows, but he didn't wake up. Shizuo made a mental note not to lose his temper or he would definitely wake up the smaller man. He wasn't ready for him to wake up yet.

"No, no, no! You got me wrong! It really is amazing that you could do it…"

Was Shinra doubting his manhood now? Oh, this "not-losing-your-temper" –thing was going to get a tad more difficult. The other basically begged for his hand to be separated from the rest of his body.

"It's just that, the pills I gave you should have made you as jelly as… well a jellyfish. You must really, really and I mean REALLY want Izaya to be able to do it even once. But to make lo-…"

At that point, Shizuo decided to hang up. Call it fucking, screwing, banging or whatever, but it wasn't making love. It wasn't. It wasn't, no matter how many times Izaya had told Shizuo he loved him that night. It didn't matter that he remembered a point where he had repeated it over and over again and eventually come to the conclusion that Shizuo could be the one to own him. It didn't matter how beautiful that had sounded to him at the time, how beautiful anything the other had breathed out had sounded. No matter that he had actually told the other he was beautiful, because he truly had been, lying under him, moaning his name, the prettiest one of all the things Izaya had said, and clinging to him as if for his dear life.

It didn't matter that, at end of their final act of the night, Shizuo had broken his personal promise of never letting the dark haired man hear those three specific words pass through his lips while being dedicated to him. None of it mattered. Or he didn't want it to matter, but it was the same. The point was, it shouldn't have mattered. He wanted to break out of all this. He didn't want this all on him. He should have been given the possibility to turn it down. But he wasn't and now it was too late. It was all Izaya's fault really. The other didn't give up until he got what he wanted. Shizuo had been doomed from the very start.

It wasn't just the lack of trust that bothered him. It did, but it wasn't all there was to it. There had been a reason Shizuo had hated Izaya the moment he had seen him. It wasn't just a random decision, there was an actual motive behind it. The moment he saw Izaya, he had known that the other had a dark side to him. No, scratch that. He had known, he had seen it with his own two eyes that the other had no heart and that his soul was tainted almost to the point of being purely evil.

This observation was proven to be true later on. Izaya wanted to see others suffer. He wanted to be the one to make them suffer and he enjoyed it when he succeeded to. Shizuo had witnessed it in first hand. All Izaya's ideals and goals went against all that Shizuo voted for. His temper put aside, Shizuo was actually a really nice guy when you got to know him. But Izaya… His plan to get to heaven had probably been to first kill someone potentially good, wait for an angel to come get him or her to heaven, cut the angel's wings off, duck tape them to his own back and fly to heaven himself. It sounded very Izaya. Ridiculous and evil.

It was Shizuo's job to get rid of Izaya, because he knew all this and he had the power to get rid of him. It was for the greater good. But it wasn't like rationality was going to make him fall out of love. No, it was a lot easier to drop in than to make his way out. Why had he even fallen for the other? Didn't that make no sense at all, what on earth could Izaya have that had made him fall for him? Nobody falls without a reason and that was just a fact. Even Seiji had fallen for Celty's head because he had thought that it was beautiful. Shizuo then, well he liked to think that he fell for Izaya's supposed "love" towards him.

Of course he wasn't sure if Izaya couldn't even feel real love, but that wasn't the point. What made him fall were small things. The fact that, lately, Izaya had been stubbornly and continuously asking him how his days had gone by, even though Shizuo hadn't answered one single time. Maybe that was why he kept asking, because Shizuo never answered. But after babbling so much about his own days, Shizuo had gotten the impression that he really, truly had wanted to hear the answer to the question. It was the fact that when Izaya had had an absolutely boring moment, he had doodled two chibies on a napkin, him and Shizuo apparently, holding hands and emitting hearts over their heads, taken a picture of it and sent it to Shizuo.

The fact that when Izaya had been talking about rainbows, he talked about the millions of shades and radiances that were created by the three simplest little colors. Yes, Shizuo had fallen for the one small, good, innocent part in him, but the same way that his darkness was deeper than anyone else's, Izaya's light was more brilliant than of anyone he had ever met before. Shizuo knew that it was truly a tiny part and it didn't, it hadn't and it wouldn't stop him from doing evil. But it was a part of him anyway.

Shizuo wished he could just keep the innocent him in his arms forever, away from doing harm, but he wasn't stupid enough to think that he could just stop him from doing all that he did. He wasn't sure if he could even keep Izaya in his arms for the littlest moment. At that, he felt like hitting himself. He had promised himself that he wouldn't tell the other how he felt about him because, if he did, Izaya would achieve his goal. There would no longer be anything for him to go after here. He would leave. Shizuo had tried to keep his feelings to himself, tried to force the other to stay, but he had failed miserably in his plan.

How could he even have fallen in love so fast? Some people said it took years to achieve that, yet, he had fallen during one single night. Granted, he had probably been going towards that direction before already, but still. Well, love was a rather abstract term. It was a word like intelligence, madness and evil were, things that everyone had slightly different definitions of, levels of how high or low you needed to be to get the title. If Shizuo was ever going to feel something more than he felt right now, he would just call it deeper or stronger love. That was just it, end of discussion.

Izaya groaned and began shuffling. Shizuo turned to look at him, but the other's eyes were still closed. Izaya wiggled his way to Shizuo's side. Once he had reached his goal, the blanket suddenly opened and a hand came out to pull Shizuo inside the cocoon Izaya had created. Now that he had gotten his teddy bear back into his hold, Izaya proceeded to make odd, although rather satisfied noises, smacking and something close to "yumyumyum". It was quiet for a moment. Then a strict order.

"Call Tom later and tell him you're sick and can't come to work. Or else I'll get you fired."

Shizuo smiled. He felt somewhat special because Izaya didn't even try to manipulate him, even though Shizuo's every reaction to Izaya's every action no longer was violence. Threatening and manipulating were two completely different things and although Izaya probably had been serious about it, Shizuo found it somewhat cute. Okay, let's do it this way. Celty could come and clean things up if Izaya tried to destroy the world. Shizuo would just follow the little man around and try to minimize the damage, all the while trying to save his soul with the invincible power of love. Right.

But he was being serious with the basic idea. Because now, surprisingly, it seemed like Izaya actually knew what he wanted. He had reached his goal, but he wasn't leaving the prize behind. Or rather, he wanted to be the prize the blonde carried around. Shizuo decided that they could manage as long as there was that brilliant, beautiful part in Izaya that loved him enough to shine over the darkness in him and make him want to be loved in return. God damn it Shizuo was losing his mind. Luckily he wouldn't need it if he was going to live the rest of his life with Izaya. Not to mention Valhalla. Izaya yawned and moved straight from there to gently nibbling Shizuo's shoulder. He was smacking again.

"I will eat you…"

If he ever ended up going along with Izaya's plan to destroy the whole planet, he would tell anyone who ever dared to scold him for it, to spend just one morning with Izaya and try not to do the same for the little man. Except that Izaya was officially and fucking exclusively his and he would personally kill anyone who even tried that in a very torturous way, but that was beside the point. What the point was, Izaya was the strangest, but also the cutest thing ever in the morning. And he was all Shizuo's now.