Work Text:
In the quietness of the night, Shizuo woke up, tapping on a keyboard and the clicks of a mouse bit by bit calling him awake. He sat up, brushing a rough hand on his face, his eyes blearing at the harsh light of the still on tv. On the corner it was written 2:23 AM, some kind of strange program he didn't know was going on. He must have fallen asleep on the couch without noticing.
The typing noise continued, and Shizuo turned over the backrest to look at Izaya, still seated at his desk. Unbelievable. He fell on the sofa again, letting his arms dangle from the headrest and groaning softly.
“Oh, Shizu-chan!” Izaya tilted his head over the screen to look at him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his eyes.
Shizuo waved one hand, “Hey yourself,” he muttered.
“You seriously still working?”
Izaya just mumbled a vague ‘yes’, his gaze already leaving him to hide again behind the screens. Shizuo cocked his head against his arms, blinking sleepily at what little he could make of his face was illuminated by the shifting color of the screens.
“You took a break?” he asked, his brow furrowing as he rubbed his eyes behind his glasses.
“Of course,” with anything but truth.
“You lia…” Shizuo begins, but Izaya cut him off.
"You got me all hopeful, you know," he said instead in a slightly louder voice, “Your distracting snoring stopped so suddenly, for a moment there I kinda hoped Shizu-chan had finally died in his sleep.”
Shizuo snorted. “You wish you could get rid of me this easy.”
“What can I say, a man can dream," he chuckled too, his laugh so shallow and tired that would have been lost if not for the quiet dimness of his apartment.
Silence fell over them after this, Izaya seemingly totally absorbed into his work. With a sigh, Shizuo turned off the tv and got up from the couch, stretching a bit before lethargically shuffling towards him. He planted himself behind his desk chair, squinting lazily at the bright screens and trying to make some sense of the things on them. Almost instinctively his hand found its way behind his nape, playing with the short cropped hair and stifling a yawn with the other. The little shit even started leaning into his touch, but otherwise didn’t say anything, let alone raise his head.
“What could there be of interest for you here, Shizu-chan?” He said after a while.
“It’s late, Iza,” Shizuo continued to stroke him, gaze falling on the computer clock.
“Just leave as it is, it’ll still be here tomorrow.”
“Oh, Shizu-chan don’t be silly,” he mockingly huffed, his pestering lilt in contrast to his focused expression, “It doesn’t work like this.”
“You know I have no idea how it works…” Shizuo let his fingers slide from the top of his head, dipping his thumb against the little hole behind his nape, “But I know for sure you’re bullshitting me.”
“I would never,” he breathed, the outraged intention behind his tone coming off instead all whimpery.
“Yeah?”
“Ye… Yes.” Straightening up, Izaya cleared his throat. He even placed his hand over Shizuo's, stopping his massaging. Shizuo furrowed his brows.
“Is this so serious?”
Izaya sighed. “Not getting too much into details, I found a contact and I can’t lose them.”
“C’mon,” he grumbled, “Don’t these people ever go to sleep?” “It’s in Europe… Germany or whatever, it should be like evening there,” Izaya trailed off, his head going from one screen to another, and then clicking rapidly with his mouse, opening a couple more windows.
“Listen, I won't be much longer,” he gnawed at his lips, grabbing his hand and placing it firmly at his side. “Just go to sleep… I’ll come soon, alright?”
“Yeah, sure,” Shizuo scoffed. It wouldn’t be the first time he would pull off an all-nighter, wasting all his vague promises ‘in a little time, Shizu-chan’ into the not-so silent crawl into bed the morning after, all useless and exhausted. Like hell he was going to fall for that again.
“I’ll keep you company, then,” he said, placing his hand more firmly on Izaya again, and stifling yet another yawn in the crook of his elbow. Damn him, and his inescapable need of eight hours straight of sleep. But more damn Izaya and his stubbornness.
As was to be expected, Izaya wasn’t one to yield easily, and he started shaking his head vigorously. “No way! For starters, it’ll take even longer because you are only going to distract me! Or worse I could write something dubious like 'kill me already' or ‘harder Shizu-chan’ without even–”
His hand instantly complied, stroking his tense neck with a harder push. Izaya closed his eyes, moaning not as quietly as he surely would have wanted.
Shizuo leaned on him. “You just have to say it, y’know,” he whispered, his voice rumbling low between them.
“Always a brute,” he muttered, finally looking up at him for the first time, his eyes glaring at him, red-rimmed and half lidded with sleeplessness.
Why the hell would he push himself so much, Shizuo could never understand. Or he would never, if he didn’t know him so painfully well. As much as he would have wanted to just leave him be, given that he was falling asleep on his feet already as it was, he couldn't. When it was like this, that’s where he drew the line. So Shizuo leaned more on him and grabbed the arms of his ridiculous swivel chair, his broad shoulders almost dwarfing his smaller figure seated under him. The air between them stilled, the chair shaking imperceptibly under his grip, Izaya frozen beneath him.
“A brute, you say?” He breathed hot and hard over his faintly blushing cheeks. “I would be if I were to bring you to bed by force, mh?” Izaya just stared at him with eyes impossibly wide, his breath stilled inside his nostrils.
Shizuo smirked, and placed a peck on his forehead. "So don't make me, and come already.”
Izaya blinked a couple times, before he groaned loudly.
“Why do you invariably, infallibly, incredibly insist on making my life so really, terribly hard for me?”
Shizuo shrugged.
“It’s become kinda my kink.”
Izaya shook his head, chuckling. “You have no idea how much I hate you.”
All of a sudden Izaya grabbed him by his shirt, raising a bit from his seat to crush their mouths together. Shizuo’s teeth clumsily clashed with his lips at the impact, his hands fumbling a bit before they found his hips. His arms readily circled his waist in a tight embrace, the tender warmth of his body seeping from under his thin shirt and flooding all his senses. Shizuo slipped his fingers under it, stroking Izaya’s back just with the tips, reveling in all his small shivers, humming at his soft moans echoing inside their kiss. They kissed like they hadn’t done it in years, and somehow it was always like that between them, as if reconnecting after a long time apart. Or as if making up for lost time. Shizuo didn't really know, and didn't really care. He liked them like this.
They separated after a while, sharing each other’s breaths, staying in each other’s arms in that uncomfortable position, with Shizuo still leaning onto him, and Izaya half standing from his seat.
It was Izaya who broke their silence first, licking the little blood from his split lip. “What were you saying?”
Shizuo glanced at him, “That you still have important stuff to do?”
At this, Izaya simply groaned.
“Since when did you become this much more dense?!”
Instead of answering, Shizuo easily lifted him from his chair, and into his arms, the sudden movement making Izaya squeal high-pitched. After he regained his composure, he started punching him on his shoulder. His fists were weak as hell, and Shizuo wouldn’t even have noticed them if he wasn’t already looking down at him with an amused smile.
“What are you smiling like an idiot for? It’s not funny!” Izaya shouted angrily, “For a moment there, I thought you were going to hurl me straight to the bedroom from here! I saw my life flash in front of me, I swear!”
Shizuo mused a bit, enjoying until the end the ill-concealed dread with which Izaya was looking at him. In the end he nodded, “Could work, though, with you being scrawny ‘n all…”
“Not even try to attempt it…” Izaya now positively glared at him, a familiar threatening glint surfacing despite the exhaustion in his eyes, “I can only have so much tolerance for your rough ways.”
Picking away his glasses still on his face, Shizuo grinned.
“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll do it only when we’re short on time.”
Izaya frowned, then he sighed dramatically, slumping in his arms, “I can’t believe I’ve stooped so low as to become the butt of Shizuo Heiwajima’s jokes, Ikebukuro’s resident knucklehead… Could there be a fate worse than this?”
“You pretty much dug your grave when you let me live here.” Shizuo said, leaning to place his glasses on his desk. He then hugged him closer to kiss away his frown.
“Nowhere to run away anymore, huh?”
Izaya’s eyes glared at him again, the annoyance giving way to a sort of astonishment. He couldn’t help but be always guarded, always on the edge, but Shizuo was glad to be the only one to see this little glances of him from time to time. Hell, if he could he would be saying careless shit like that just to see his shocked face.
For a while, Izaya looked on the verge of saying something, the feelings he didn’t let seep out from his lips flashing instead in his eyes. If looks could speak, Izaya was giving out a whole speech just by looking at him. If he was someone else he would have been just freaked out by the sheer intensity of his look. Instead Shizuo just stood silent, still holding his light body in his arms, not even blinking while he too stared at him.
In the end, Izaya didn’t say anything. He placed his head heavily on his shoulder, huffing warmly in the curve of his neck.
“Yeah, let's just go to bed already…” he muttered, grabbing the collar of his shirt, “The guy’s lost now, anyway.”
A dull silence fell on them, and Shizuo simply clutched Izaya close to him to climb the stairs to the bedroom. He walked with careful steps, his eyes squinting in the relative darkness of the apartment. To say he was feeling drowsy was an understatement. The nap on the couch was hardly enough for him, his head now painfully throbbing with sleep deprivation. On top of all that, he also had to get up in less than… maybe four hours for an extremely early meeting with Tom. That damned flea. If they went to sleep when he told him at midnight, he wouldn’t have waited for him watching boring television and they would have already been hugging in bed.
There was nobody, though, to hear the gritting of his teeth.
By the time he reached his bedroom, which wasn’t much really, Izaya had somehow fallen asleep on him, his soft rhythmic breath fanning on his skin, the hold around his shirt limp.
“Stubborn flea,” he muttered silently, still feeling glad he noticed it in time, his hand brushing the light switch, at the last time not turning it on.
With careful steps, he tried to make his way into the even darker bedroom. As was to be expected, he bumped on the edge of his comically big bed. He bit his broken lip, taking a hushed breath in. Izaya stirred just a little in his arms, curling tighter into him and mumbling in sleep. He stood completely still near the bed for a while, waiting for him to fall asleep again. After all, Izaya was a really light sleeper.
Still moving slowly, he lifted over the covers on the bed, while balancing him on one arm. There was really no need for him to carry him with both arms, what with his inhuman… With him being very strong. Still he really liked to hold him like this, to feel Izaya’s lithe form against his chest, to feel all the little twitches and pent-up frustration because of whatever crap thoughts he had in his fucked up brain just melt into the warmest sigh. There must be something significant in it, and Shizuo didn’t– could never miss it.
As gently as he could, he went to place him on the bed. Of course, the flea instantly started groaning like a petulant kid.
“Don’t go,” he slurred, grasping almost pitifully at his arm. “Stay with me…”
He chuckled a bit, shaking him off and hastily throwing the covers on him. “I live here now, the hell you want me to go, huh?"
Izaya didn’t say anything, instead burrowing himself under the thick duvet with a deep sigh. Stifling his hundredth yawn that night, Shizuo just let go. It was just too late to ask about what was going on, his antics and paranoias be damned. He scratched his belly under his shirt, as he walked on the other side of the bed, then climbing on it. With another yawn, he closed his eyes, almost falling asleep right then. A cold hand grabbed his own, followed by his chilly feet tangling up with his.
“Good night, Shizu-chan."
Under the covers, Shizuo shifted to face Izaya, his eyes open and glinting in the gloom, the neon lights of the city seeping from the closed curtains glowing behind him. He looked soft.
“Good night, you pest." He raised a hand to caress him one last time.
“Sleep now."
"Okay."