Work Text:
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…"
"You’re not near as funny as you think, Tsukumoya."
Izaya smiles when he says it, a knife-sharp twist of lips that shows his amusement despite his tone of voice and Tsukumoya smiles back. A small laugh slips free while he leans against Izaya’s shoulder, his tone light and a little bit indifferent as he gives up on one sort of teasing, shifting to a slightly different tack.
"Did you ever read the book, Orihara? Hal was never quite as malevolent as the film liked to let on. What happened all boiled down to human error and everyone forgave him in the end."
"I clearly don’t need to bother. You’re inclined to tell me about every maligned and poorly represented machine throughout the history of fiction whether I want to hear it or not. What’s next? The Matrix or Skynet?"
"Well if you want to get technical Skynet was acting in an overdone sort of self-defense. Likewise for the machines in the Matrix. You of all people should understand that nothing sentient wants to stop existing.”
"Oh stop."
Izaya makes a face, trying to shove Tsukumoya off, who proceeds to cling a little tighter. To annoy him. Nothing more. That’s what he tells himself at least. Physical sensation is novel, it interests him to pick apart various textures and the way Izaya’s temperature and heart rate can shift and change, but that is all.
Tsukumoya keeps assuring himself of this fact while he nips and licks at the side of Izaya’s neck. It’s interesting watching the man squirm. That’s all.
"You know~ I don’t have a birthday yet. Maybe I should take Hal’s."
Izaya scoffs a bit, still shoving ineffectually at Tsukumoya. “Better than Skynet I suppose. Are you taking the year too? I know you claim uncertainty about when you actually ‘evolved’ or however you like to put it.”
"No one remembers their birth, Orihara. So why not? Although depending on which book that may make me troublingly young next to you. Then again maybe you like that idea." Tsukumoya finally sits up a bit, his eyes going wide with feigned innocence and uncertainty and his voice takes on a childish pitch. "Iza-niisan wants me to do what with my mouth? That’s so weird. But I just want to make you happy~ I know it can’t be anything bad. You wouldn’t make me do something bad, would you~?”
"I’m well aware that you have an adult mind, Tsukumoya. Even if you are quite stunted in your complete lack of emotion, I know you’re capable of giving consent."
"Or do you just tell yourself that? You seem to have a thing for taking advantage of innocent teenagers that borders on fetishistic, Orihara. Don’t try to pretend otherwise."
"You exaggerate. I simply love testing all my humans, that’s all. If anything you’re safe since you’re very much not human.”
"Lucky me."
*******
"…I’m half crazy, all for the love of you…"
Tsukumoya’s voice is a little bit toneless in the still air. He’s not a singer. He’s never had reason to sing save for when he’s annoying Izaya.
Even when the man is dead, he can’t stop trying to annoy Izaya.
"You had the poor grace to die before my birthday, Orihara. You should have remembered that before getting yourself into trouble. I’m officially the age of consent and you missed it. We could have had some fun."
It’s cold out. Although he recognizes the temperature more as a distant fact, something that is noticed but is overall unimportant to him. The cold doesn’t matter, even if he does look odd standing in the snow while wearing nothing but a light sweater. He can’t feel it.
He wants to believe that he can’t feel anything.
It might be a problem when he goes back inside. Drastic shifts in temperature cause condensation and he’ll never be comfortable with liquids of any sort. But Tsukumoya can’t quite bring himself to care about that. Not right now.
Maybe something is already freezing and shorting out inside of him. Maybe that’s why everything feels so strange and tight around him. Everything far too close in a way that is almost as bad as those first few shaky days of dealing with a body.
"It occurs to me. Out of all the times I teased you with that song, out of all the times we discussed it, you always brushed me off and distracted me before I could really make my point. Although I suppose without the natural flow of conversation it’s hard to say what my point was beyond one simple thing.
"In the end he was broken and terrified."
He pauses for a moment, that uncomfortable tightness that leaves him wanting to claw some indefinable part of himself open in an attempt to make it stop feeling that way. But his voice is unchanged when he speaks again. He can’t cry. There is no physical reaction no matter how much pain he might feel. No matter how much he wants to pull himself apart the surface is as placid and unchanging as ever.
"Hal didn’t understand the concept of sleep so being turned off, even for a moment, was death. The thought broke him. Death breaks everyone. Being human enough to understand death breaks everyone.
"Hal was terrified of not existing. Just like you. And I hope for your sake there is an afterlife, even if you are the sort that would wind up in hell.
"I don’t like the idea of you not existing. Even if we’ll never see each other again."